Canibus - Get Retarded

I've advanced beyond your flows aeons ago.

Album: Can-I-Bus [debut album]
Genre: Hip Hop, East Coast Hip Hop
Album Release: September 8th 1998
Length: 4:07
Producer: Salaam Remi
Vocalist: Canibus [age 23]
Label: Universal Music Division

Official Audio


Live on Bars and Guitars in 2023

Charts, Streams & Sales

Spotify: Over 1 million
YouTube Music: Over 900 thousand

Credits

Details

• I like it when Canibus starts rapping about crazy subjects like the human genome project and UFO's because it makes his music stand out by becoming something abstract and cerebral instead of something grounded in a reality of harsh streets and drug beefs. It's conceptual hip hop for the mind that's purely lyrical, and its existence is justified by itself. It's rapping for the sake of rapping but the lyrical content is given even more importance than flow.
  
  A lot of rapping sounds good but means nothing, whereas here you have both, and the lyrics are exceptional. The beat is mellow and has a nice mix of highs and lows that largely serve as a platform for Canibus to rhyme on. As always on Canibus tracks, it's the lyrics that shine, and on this one my favourite part is:
  
  
  "To the British, I'm Gandhi. To the Japanese, I'm an American pilot flying over Nagasaki. To the AIDS patient, I'm your last antibody, sitting and waiting for a cure from modern biology."
  
  
  
• 'Get Retarded' has a very loose science theme that serves as a lexicon for Canibus to dip into more than a concrete inspiration. The lyrics mention: parsecs; the laws of physics; Andromeda; crop circles and the DNA's double helix to name a few examples.  
  
  The effect of this is to present the music as rational as opposed to emotional. The language of science is present while the rapper spits braggadocio bars which gives the impression that when Canibus says he's the best at rhyming it's a scientific claim, while other rappers are merely stating an opinion. Canibus uses scientific language in his rapping to such an extent that it has become a part of his signature style, which marks his rapping as distinctive, while also providing him with a near inexhaustible set of words to rhyme on.
  
  
• 'Can-I-Bus' is the debut album by Canibus and was considered a major disappointment by hip hop fans who had expected a classic based on the strength of the rappers early features. The fans reaction to the album was so scathing that Canibus apologised for it and in his 2000 song '2000 B.C.' he blamed the producer Wyclef for its poor performance "you mad at the last album I apologize for it, I can't call it, motherfucking Wyclef spoiled it".
  
  
  
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