Album Review: JJ Doom - Keys To The Kuffs

It's the kind of story you think the enigmatic, self-mythologising DOOM would make up about himself. After a successful European tour, the MC was refused entry into the United States, so he wrote his rhymes for another new record in England while in a Victor Von Doom-styled exile.

While DOOM was stuck in England, alternative beat-maker Jneiro Jarel – aka Dr. Who Dat? – was compiling an album worth of material back in the States. The product of the two alt-rap darlings, JJ DOOM is as good as anything expected from the pairing, Jarel's tightly wound beats pulsating around the gaps in DOOM's gravel-throated rhymes.

Conceived out of DOOM's time in England, Keys To The Kuffs sends some shout outs across the pond, but these mostly take on a fairly superficial form in songs like Guv'nor. Apart from the odd reference to a British TV show (My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding), guest spots from UK luminaries (Damon Albarn and Portishead's Beth Gibbons) and hints of England's grime rap sound during Banished, the album remains very American, defined by Jarel's impressive arrangement of beats.

Delivery-wise, DOOM sticks to his Madvillian modus operandi for the album. He's in fine form too, mixing the slow, stoned rhymes and tongue-twistingly fast efforts that the MC transitions between with aplomb. Packing Keys To The Kuffs with tricky wordplay and obscure references (is that a shout out to Brisbane on Rhymin Slang?) that unfold in front of the listener upon multiple listens, DOOM really steals the show here. As impressive as JJ's beats are, ...Kuffs is about the thrill of seeing where DOOM will take his brilliant free-association rhymes next.