Florida

Originally released at the end of 2004, Diplo’s debut effort, Florida was rumored to be the next great album of the hip-hop producer sub-genre. Though it wasn’t a commercial success upon it’s release, Florida had no problem living up to its reputation amongst beat-heads, jazz fans and hipsters alike. Now, approximately half a year later, Big Dada Records has given the album an expanded release, offering a lower price point, free full-length DVD and sticker that says something to the effect of, “since ya’ll suckers slept last time.”  

Though not as psychedelic as initial reviews have vowed, Florida plays like the work of a jazz fusion aficionado raised in the classic era of hip-hop. Beginning with a string arrangement backed by a vicious drum break and loopy violins, Florida prototype “Big Lost” ends up incorporating Herbie Hancock-esque synths, random nature sounds and extensive piano work. On Florida, Diplo pays homage to electric jazz more so than hip-hop, always utilizing chopped drum breaks as his only clear reference to hip-hop.

“Sarah” sounds about like what one would imagine both Jim Jarmusch and Quentin Tarantino had hoped to get when they called on the RZA to score their films. Diplo’s gritty affects and pounding drums create a hypnotic vibe throughout most of Florida, typically taking six to eight bar breaks for some sort of wayward beat change. The longer tracks, “Works” and “Summer’s Gonna Hurt You,” lose their focus and, despite their impressive compositions, aren’t as effective as Diplo’s more concise work.

The DVD portion of the re-release is very bizarre, to say the least. Filled with random images of dinosaurs, naked women, Bigfoot and other disjointed oddities, System-D128’s accompanying film offers little to Diplo’s fan-base that isn’t continually stoned. While some of the footage is creative and well edited, for the most part the DVD is gratuitous and unstructured. If you already own Florida, (which, according to the previously mentioned sticker, you can’t possibly) you’d be best off not re-buying the album for the new, unnecessary features.

Every year, like clockwork, there’s a new hip-hop artist that gets tagged as the ‘New Dj Shadow.’ And every year, I buy the album and review it. I’m not fooled this time; Florida is certainly well produced and often times pleasing; but in reality it’s just the work of another self motivated hip-hop fan with a penchant for jazz. If you like Dj Shadow, Boards of Canada, Tortoise, Tricky, RjD2, Moby, Prefuse73, Dosh, El-P, etc., then you’ll probably like Diplo. If I were you, and I hadn’t already bought the M.I.A. or LCD Soundsystem albums, I’d go get those instead, sucka.    6/10

Written by G. William Locke