Album Review: Art Monk by Patty Honcho & Wiz Kelly
A Paterson rapper and a sample-digger name their album after a wide receiver who waited decades for Canton. The comparison isn’t flattering, as Patty and Wiz both showed up hungry.
When Art Monk walked onto the stage in Canton, Ohio, in August 2008 to accept his induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, the crowd stood and refused to sit down. The ovation ran four minutes and four seconds, timed later by NFL Films, the longest in the ceremony’s history. Monk had waited eight years past his first eligible season. Voters kept passing him over. He was too quiet, too steady, and he played in an era when flashier receivers grabbed the ink. He retired with 940 career catches, was the first player to record 106 receptions in a season, and won three Super Bowls as a Washington Redskin. He was also, less famously, a first cousin once removed of Thelonious Monk.
Patty Honcho, a rapper from Paterson, New Jersey, who self-publishes through his own imprint and records in his bedroom at what he calls Authenic Studios—the misspelling is intentional—named his latest rapper-producer collaboration with Wiz Kelly after the man. Art Monk collapses Art the proper name and art the practice into a single title, and the album doesn’t explain the metaphor for you. An old interview clip of the real Art Monk discussing the pressure of being Washington’s first number-one draft pick in twelve years plays at the end of “Arts of the Unknown,” and that’s the only time it lays it out.
Wiz Kelly produced every track here, and his sample-based beats shift weight depending on the song. “Septa: Train of Thought” rides a low, clipped loop with a kick drum for long stretches before a snare creeps in and recedes again; the beat breathes at the pace of a commuter-rail schedule. “Dreams of a Pianist” pivots between a dusty soul chop in between breaks that kicks into a full composition during Patty’s verses, like Wiz rebuilt the floor between rooms. Some of these tracks, “Introduction” with its spoken-word preamble about marble floors and heated tiles, or the interlude segments where Patty talks to himself mid-session. On “The Art Monk,” a mid-tempo beat with chopped keys, Patty shouts out Horace Ott, the South Carolina-born jazz arranger who scored for Nina Simone, the Shirelles, and the Village People, a reference so deep in the crates it practically smells like dust. “Monk at the Masquerade” and “Arts of the Unknown” hit harder, the kicks punching through where the other tracks let the samples do most of the work, and both songs find Patty rapping with top-tier confidence.
The album is full of women, and Patty writes about them with an unselfconscious specificity that most rappers avoid. On “Introduction,” he meets a woman smarter than all his girlfriends—she looks like Maya from Girlfriends, she looks like Lynn, she looks like Joan—and when she tells him Tha Carter III isn’t as good as Tha Carter II, his eyes light up and he says, “I’ll buy everything in the mall for you.” His Indiana woman clears his fever on “The Art Monk,” then his Chicago woman touches the sky, the rebound punchline tucked inside the brag (both Caitlyn Clark and Angel Reese references). On “Afterword: Outro,” a Jamaican woman propositions him, and a white woman named Cyrus, who looks like Miley, shoots her shot, and both times he tells her “thank you kindly.” He’s flattered, he appreciates the confidence, but he just can’t do it. The joke sours just enough when, on “150,000 Hours,” he admits he’s at a point where he’ll force someone to love him and concedes plainly that he’s not mature enough for it.
Half the album doubles as an argument about who belongs in hip-hop and who should be asked to leave. The marble-floors concept from “Introduction,” remove your shoes, heated tiles, you’re welcome, but you’re a guest, carries across the album in a gatekeeping streak that runs hot enough to be funny. On “Arts of the Unknown,” he brags that he inspired your inspiration and calls industry MCs amateurs compared to him, then follows it up with, “I inspired your inspiration, baby, it’s clear to see/I’m at a height that the tallest man is probably scared to reach.” “Monk at the Masquerade” wonders aloud what hip-hop would say about vultures invading art, who gave them a proper stage. On “Afterword: Outro,” he says his current view of the lane is disdain and that all he hears from other rappers is fodder bars, then tells them to put the same energy into coming up with their own swag instead of copying his. He’s funny, too. Chip Skylark references, Ryan Coogler namedrops, a Simon Cowell punchline that shouldn’t connect but does.
KCxJones, the lone guest on “Path of Gems,” opens with one of the strongest feature verses on any underground rap record this year. Jones packs Roman kings, polypropylene, Jeremy Renner, monastery burials, and an M. Night plot twist into a single sixteen without losing the cadence. Patty’s own verse on the same song gets stranger and more personal. He raps that anything government-funded is a crime business, drops a crackheads-who-look-like-Biden’s-son punchline, and then closes by asking whether the woman he loves puts him above her the way he puts her above rap. The question hangs without an answer.
Elsewhere, “Septa: Train of Thought” is named after the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority, the Philly commuter rail, and the chorus talks about getting wisdom from riding that train, about blessings coming, but people still hitting you with your adolescent shame. On “150,000 Hours,” Greyhounds run from Philly straight to 34th Street. He still pulls dime pieces in a Honda Accord. He wants to know if anyone will rap at his wake when he’s ninety-plus, and whether his grandmother is still alive so they can eat pound cake together. Patty Honcho raps from Paterson with a commute and a catalog deep enough to fill a milk crate, and Art Monk is the one where the concept and the execution finally occupy the same room.
Great (★★★★☆)
Favorite Track(s): “Septa: Train of Thought,” “Path of Gems,” “Afterword: Outro”