Review: Looptroop Rockers – “Good Things”
July 5, 2008
Looptroop Rockers
“Good Things”
Label: Bad Taste Records
Genre: Hop-hop
I admit. I dance in elevators. at lease when I am alone and listening to Looptroop Rockers’ fourth album, “Good Things.” While the rhythms force me to dance, the lyrics of the Swedish hip-hop band make it hard to stay indifferent.
Looptroop Rockers are famous for their politics. They have compared Swedish immigration policy to the Berlin Wall. On this album, the lyrics are about trying to live a life outside the norm: to find your own way to build a family, to avoid busyness and keep being yourself. Sometimes there is little hope in the lyrics. “Blood & Urine” is about people and DNA: “Like an unwanted pregnancy / I fell they don’t wnt to see mroe people like you and me.”
On the other hadn, waht can be more empowering than: “Let me be who I wanna be / Let me be who I am / Let me be naive,” combined with compulisive rhythms? There is only one downside. I can’t stand “Living on a Prayer,” the only cover on the album. Apart from that, Looptroop Rockers is Swedish hip-hop at its best.
Seoul. June 30, 2008.
Published in JoongAng Daily
