Tool Muziq

As his career progresses, Pastor Troy’s spilt personalities become more and more fervent on either side of the spectrum. On one end, he's a Southern rapper’s Southern rapper, a street tough veteran determined to bring the region’s hip-hop back to its rude, crude, and extra-loud roots. On the other end, he is an unpredictable trickster, half-hustler, half-imp, plying a grotesquely high-pitched flow over inexplicable reworkings of Donna Summer (“Hard for the Money”). The label may have insisted Troy change the album title from Saddam Hussein to Tool Muziq, but remaining is “Saddam,” an earthquake of crunk that compares the effect of Troy’s music to Saddam’s ruthlessness. “I’m gonna bring genocide to the rap game,” Troy explained in an interview. Such comments might not be acceptable coming from, say, Kanye West, but Troy wouldn’t be Troy if he wasn’t foaming at the mouth, ready to attack. How can you deny an MC who takes a malfunctioning Atari and turns it into a beat (“Digital”), or pens a letter from jail to his mother using Mr. Mister’s soft-rock staple “Broken Wings” as a backdrop? Pastor Troy is the kind of rapper that critics hate to love, but the man’s untamed charisma and unrepentant devotion to his own unhinged personality makes Tool Muziq a wildly entertaining listen.