White rappers had better be very smart, very funny or some combination of both.

There, it’s been said.

Why do people love Eminem? He’s a quick-witted, confrontational lyricist with some fine flows who is just “real” enough to cross color lines. Why do people love the Bloodhound Gang? Because they’re funny enough to cross color lines and don’t harbor any illusions or pretenses about who they are.

All great writers know their strengths and play to them. They don’t attempt to be something they themselves know they’re not. That’s where Eminem and the Bloodhound Gang succeed, and where Paul Wall and Bubba Sparxx fail.

MC Lars and his album This Gigantic Robot Kills will be a love-it-or-leave-it proposition. But at least he’s honest.

Anyone who would find a mash-up of the Dead Milkmen’s quirky, ironic, cynical sensibilities and the Offspring’s Dexter Holland – circa getting bored with punk and dropping a big steaming pile of “Pretty Fly (For A White Guy)” – would buy this. Lars is no vanilla gangsta. He’s more like a slightly less irritating Jamie Kennedy, and that works in small doses. However, nothing on this album shows much effort to stand out or put an exclamation point on the whole set.

Give the man credit for guest appearances no other rapper could possibly make listenable. Anyone who digs “Weird Al” Yankovic ought to gobble and savor “True Player For Real” and its Al-accordion hook like a cocker spaniel with a Beggin’ Strip. Right off the bat, it’s hard to take Lars too seriously but if you’ve adjusted your expectations appropriately from the start, it’s a moot point. You just don’t watch “Friday the 13th” with “King Lear” expectations. Nevertheless, there’s some cute word-play here in Lars’ requisite “self-referential-introduction song”.

His words, not mine.

Remember that cynical Dead Milkmen sensibility? Like that part? Then soak up the pop-culture gravy with the title track, because it’s goof third-wave-ska-meets-hip-hop cheese sauce. It might as well be 1996 again for three minutes when Lars, the Suburban Legends and The MC Bat Commander of the Aquabats advocate ending Heidi Montag while assaulting Orange County with the Supertones and bum a line from the Pixies. Yes, THOSE Pixies.

If the set were to produce one single, it would hopefully be “Guitar Hero Hero (Beating Guitar Hero Doesn’t Make You Slash)”. If Dexter Holland had decided to write a latter-day sequel to “Pretty Fly (For A White Guy)” or the Milkmen wanted to follow up “You’ll Dance To Anything”, this would be it. Face it, someone needed to tell every “Guitar Hero” obsessive on Earth just how little they’ve ever really accomplished. And it’s impossible to expect ALL of them to have ever seen the “Guitar Queer-o” episode of South Park.

This Gigantic Robot Kills won’t light one single listener’s world on fire. It’s funny, but nothing on it stands out enough to merit more than a listen or two. It’s the most important leg-up the Milkmen would have on Lars, if things ever got that competitive. But give Lars this: he knows his strengths. He is self-referential, self-deprecating hip-hop. “Guitar Hero Hero” goes off on a tangent of lines like “watching UFC doesn’t make you any harder.” Something about that rant speaks volumes about Lars himself.

He’s evidently cool letting the thugs do their thug thing. Hey, someone has to put everybody else who’s trying to hard in their places in a way that’s amusing to the rest of us.

Review by: Sean Comer

Additional links:
- MC Lars' Website
- MC Lars on Myspace