Serengeti – Kenny Dennis LP

Album Review by Bram E. Gieben | 05 Jun 2013
Album title: Kenny Dennis LP
Artist: Serengeti
Label: Anticon
Release date: 24 Jun

Serengeti's last LP for Anticon, C.A.R., had a refreshing sense of fun and humour to its loosely-scribbled hip-hop beats, with Jel and Odd Nosdam joining Serengeti for the recording sessions. A follow-up to last year's Kenny Dennis EP, this album continues the story of Kenny Dennis, the Brain Dennehy-obsessed rap “star.” It's a running in-joke, with Serengeti playing Dennis and recounting stories like his feud with Shaquille O'Neal (the basketball star insulted his moustache), detailing his exploits in first-person, rambling raps.

Beats constructed from rough-cut samples of jazz, funk and soul underpin these hazy, surreal rants – Crush 'Em contains is a comparison of British and American sports; Laser Tag is a slice of stoner reality about, you guessed it, Laser Tag. Delightfully shambolic, restlessly inventive and strangely compelling, the fusion of intentionally messy diss-raps and freestyles with experimental, rickety beats is testament to Serengeti's cracked and psychedelic vision. Weird, in a good way.