Self diagnosis via navigation of WebMD has created a hypersensitive hypochondriacal culture. We seem the least bit attention erratic and proclaim an undiagnosed symptom of A.D.D. If four percent of the population has ADHD and 11 percent of children show symptoms, West Coast producer P. Morris is catering to both those holding the phenethylamine prescriptions and party monster abusers alike.
P. Morris emphasizes the hyperactivity in his A.D.H.D.-riddled free album, TEETH. Much like his two-volume POP.MORRIS mixtape, TEETH is a nostalgia trip for the producer. He maneuvers through a what feels like a discovered CD booklet from high school. “Television” flips through stations, a cultural nuance rapidly approaching antiquation, to arrive at “Whoa” and “Clinic”, which dices already chopped late 90s rap into mincemeat. Remnants of Red & Meth’s “Da Rockwilder”, Fabolous’ “Breathe”, and Jay-Z’s “Do It Again” are forced into coexistence in all their four-alarm dissonance. P.Morris discovers panic and stress in the fabric of the production. It rewrites the history to a degree, a triggering of the tunnel banger era that suggests there was an unspoken anxiety that went relatively unnoticed. By P.Morris’ version of “Country Grammar”, he’s channeling a harrowing spaghetti western soundscape, the type that would make RZA say “dodododododododo.”
Around the POP.MORRIS mixtape, P. Morris was influenced by a Brian Eno quote that explained the producer’s stance on the discomfort of new mediums, the societal learning curve so to speak. “Whatever you now find weird, ugly, uncomfortable and nasty about a new medium will surely become its signature,” it goes. TEETH is a meditation on rap’s undiagnosed mental health. As much as we feel compelled to diagnose Kanye and wish that he seek help, P. Morris’ TEETH EP suggests his condition and the health of his peers has been misdiagnosed for decades. It revisits an era of rap in order to assess its mental state. Then again, I’m no licensed physician and therefore have little business making these diagnoses.
P.Morris’ TEETH EP is out on Bear Club Music Group’s Bandcamp.
