Does anyone else seem to feel as if MF Grimm is developing a fetish for gingerbread men? When he released the 2005 single “Gingerbread Man” on Day By Day Entertainment, it was a clever song. Grimm turned the once fabled story of the delectable cookie-shaped man into a gun-slinging, cold-blooded killer. But Grimm can’t be serious. Can he? Not only has he released The Order of the Baker: the Gingerbread Mixtape and is planning to release a comic book series following the dough-boy concept, but he’s also just released The Hunt for the Gingerbread Man (Class A Records), the 13-song opus tracking the alter ego of Percy Carey and the darker side of Candyland.With production nods from Stricknine, Sammsonite, Akism and Metabolis, rhyme persona MF Grimm leaned on more sinister musical accompaniment to the conceptual-based Hunt for the Gingerbread Man. Yet, the album that only scratches the surface of what MF Grimm is really trying to accomplish. The moody songs are deftly chosen, and are the quintessential elements to pinpointing Grimm’s murderous interpretation of the gingerbread man. Songs such as “Gingy” are heart-pounding in nature, with teeth-cringing violin and piano accompaniment. Similarly, “My House,” with its pitter-pattering drums and light chimes, is a foreshadowing of the evil-natured overtones of the album.It’s Grimm’s lyrics that get the emcee into trouble. “My House” features a dapper “Gingy” driving to Hershey Park, picking up a caramel-colored female and take her back to his licorice-laced and peppermint layered gingerbread house. On the song “The Fox,” Grimm reminisces over the original fable of the gingerbread man and the fox, rhyming, “Too strong, mind over matter, can’t break me/Upset his stomach, how much longer can he take me?” Even on the album’s first single, “Earth,” Grimm stoically rhymes about being trapped in a sort of purgatory he calls Earth after starting a war in heaven. What these tracks serve to illustrate are predictable and, more often then not, shallow concepts that go along with trying to personify the gingerbread man. Having a candy-coated cookie pick up a “shortie” and take her back to the “candy mansion” seems to lack some creative value. We know the gingerbread escaped from the fox. But one’s strongest point in the song shouldn’t be to say that one upset the fox’s stomach. And to ply out regurgitated verbiage about being too gutter for heaven and too gangster for hell, well, really typifies an MF Grimm who has taken prototypical Hip-Hop music and now rapped about it from a gingerbread man’s point of view.Maybe the gingerbread man is really a commentary about the direction Hip-Hop seems to be going; a subtle assault on the gun-toting rhymes and flamboyant outfits of today’s rappers. Or maybe that’s just giving MF Grimm too much credit.SOUNDCHECK:MF Grimm “Gingy”MF Grimm “My House”
