Emerging from the ripening stank of the dirty south with a gilded mic in one hand and a beloved handle of Jimmy Beam in the other, the Great Unifier has been prophesized as merging worlds together as he brings bumping hip-hop to the rural backwoods while simultaneously painting the urban landscape with images of slow-smoked hillbilly heritage.
Who is this dynamic figure, capable of placing the last jewel in the crown of hip-hop domination, an empire that tries to masquerade as a grassroots, organic movement instead of the ravenous machine it has evolved into? Warren Mathis, performing under the svelte persona of Bubba Sparxxx, prides himself as the rhyming redneck who has confidently embraced this role - a passive, unthinking white boy's alternative to Eminem.
Before Sparxxx drops the first verse of his debut album "Dark Days, Bright Nights," an ominous doubt looms over him. The first single, "Ugly," a propulsive romp with amusingly honest but often hackneyed lyrics, draws its strength not from Sparxxx's charisma, but rather the tight, rapid-fire dance beats of hip-hop connoisseur Timbaland. Fear arises from the suspicion that Timbaland, a producer capable of selling fool's gold to Tiffany's, has latched on to yet another sycophant who fits a certain image.
As the album embarks with "Take Off," Sparxxx quells these fears, spurting pre-flight nervousness while Timbaland shrewdly ups the tension with similarly taut staccato beats, gothic chanting and oscillating strings that build to a crescendo before falling. The production hardly pushes any creative boundaries, but Sparxxx's blunt expression of anxiety juxtaposes nicely with the formal accompaniment. "Fear turns to adrenaline as life accelerates/I'm heading to my destiny, how long you guess it takes 'til I get there?" he questions, showing neither the inflated bravado nor the hokey honkey-pride of "Ugly."
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The refreshing breach in confidence mends quickly though and soon Sparxxx returns to professing the manifesto of his twangy southern lifestyle. The problems surface not in how he delivers this message; his mic skills are accomplished though mundanely undistinguishable, but in the fact that he can't find much meaningful to preach. In the 18 repetitive tracks, Sparxxx struggles to discover varying ways to profess his love for hard alcohol and drugs, his conflicting antipathy and lust for women and his pugnacious machismo.
Sparxxx inhabits a simple world; he just wants to sell his "50 million" and fill his closet with Polo and Nautica apparel. The burden, then, lies on the album's various producers to attractively lend sight to his vision. Alternating between smooth and raw textures, Timbaland decorates each of his seven songs with stark beats and dizzyingly eclectic noises that meld into cohesive arrangements.
"Bubba Talk" combines a banjo riff with primitive percussion, while "Got Right" rides congas and an elastic bass-line that will have the Neptunes calling their lawyers. By the time he finally lays down vocals 10 songs in, on "Twerk a Little," Timbaland's unique presence has dominated the album's first half so much that it demeans the moment to an anticlimax.
On "Bubba Sparxxx" and "All the Same," Outkast gurus Organized Noize craft tracks oozing with southern, gritty funk and furious drum loops, but the results sound stale in the shadow of Timbaland's work.
The two songs, however, address the hip-hop barrier Sparxxx looks to close. Unlike Eminem, who mostly eschewed questions of race, Sparxxx tackles the issue with a giddy smile, but unfortunately only reveals himself as a poser. "It's Bubba Sparxxx in the streets/The coolest white boy I know," the sample on "Bubba Sparxxx" boasts. "All the Same" provides the public service of explaining to us unenlightened listeners that drinking Jim Beam is a "white thang" but drinking Hennessy is a "black thang."
Bubba Sparxxx makes it evident that neither race nor cultural background can deny someone the ability to make a hip-hop record that chokes on its own shallow materialistic insatiability.
While everyone hastens to celebrate hip-hop's proliferation to the last untouched culture, why is no one questioning whether artists like Sparxxx are a good thing?
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