Fuck Bush, I'm goin' the fuck back to Stankonia

Maybe the blog-hop hype machine's not dead after all: "Gonna Go to Ghana," off Killer Mike's Ghetto Extraordinary (named as such because it's the hiphop Extraordinary Machine to Hell Hath No Fury's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot), beats anything off The Big Dough Rehab (yeah, including "Yolanda's House"). After the best spoken intro since "It's Britney, bitch!" sets us off, here comes a pure Andre 3000 production with fidgety computer bass, cooing soul sisters, and Mike's spectacularly gruffy delivery. In fact, the whole album ain't bad either; the music liquifies like a lower-rent Stankonia if Pimp C played Lanois to OutKast's U2. Does that make Killer Mike Eno? I can't even follow my own ridiculous analogies. But seriously: like UGK, or Devin the Dude, Mike is the rare Dirty South rapper who appears to retain long-term control of his own musical consistency.

Consistently funky to be precise, from OutKast's underrated "The Whole World" to his own "A.D.I.D.A.S." in 2003, to Ghetto's rocking "Shot Down," which Mos Def would be proud of. I know Ghetto was made for three years ago, and that I haven't heard his actually-released I Pledge Allegiance record, but the dude seems to care enough about his beats to not veer into lazy snap or anything anytime soon. Peep "Shot Down"'s extended bass solo ending if you don't believe me, or how he rights the wrongs on his superior "Rubberband Man" rip "Aye-O" with abstract computer bleeps and tuba squirts. He'd be a more commanding mic presence than T.I. even without, though. For sure his loyalty is more charming on impromptu crowd-pleasers like "I love a girl from the hood/Fuck a video ho" and "Ain't hard to find me: I'm in the South."