Gastro physicists

But Das Racist also plays into the game. When Kool A.D. is asked, via email, to name a fantasy list of other artists Das Racist would like to collaborate with, he sends back an 81-artist strong response. It includes: Phil Spector, Phil Collins, Hurricane Irene, Barack (and, later, Michelle) Obama and Devo.

Kool A.D.’s list is also studded with telling rap nerditry: Sha-Leik, the young and largely unknown producer who, for a while, helped soundtrack Charles Hamilton’s music (before the rapper went off the rails and ended up in a mental institution); Tragedy Khadafi, the original self-tagged “intelligent hoodlum” whose best work stemmed from hip-hop’s golden early-’90s era; “Jay Electronica clapping his hands” and, heading up the entire list, Havoc, the Mobb Deep producer-rapper who makes startlingly stark and regressive hip-hop. Anyone enthusiastic about working with Mobb Deep in 2011 is assuredly a ground level hip-hop soldier.

Kool A.D.’s roll call proves that, at heart, Das Racist are rap fanatics who just so happen to be humorous guys. It’s a different slant from trying to make comedy rap – just like how, before them, De La Soul made “Take It Off,” a song mocking hip-hop fashion fads, and spent early interviews talking about plans to open a nighttime golf course. Das Racist’s fantasy outpost just happens to involve shitty food.

Kool A.D. doesn’t believe that his group or “any other musical group are worth talking about for more than 10 seconds.” So who’s the joke on, anyway, and who’s in on it?

> Email Phillip Mlynar