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Giant Panda, Fly School Reunion

by David Agee
03/27/2006

In contemporary hip-hop, music artists are too often made by who produced them and how many times their names were dropped by their more popular contemporaries. But the Los Angeles trio Giant Panda relies on actual talent to carry their first full length release, Fly School Reunion, released on Tres Records.

Formed in a California, Newman (Alex Newman), Maanumental (Jamaan Mclaren), and Chikaramanga (Chikara Kurahashi) have been putting out music since 2002. Although Fly School Reunion was first released in Japan on May 21, 2005 and a month later in the US, this album is definitely worth a revisit after Giant Panda’s release of the single "T.K.O." on vinyl last December.

From the first to last track, Fly School Reunion is a solid indie hip-hop album that is reminiscent of groups like Jurassic 5 and is versatile enough to upload onto your iPod, play it in your car, or to rip some tracks for a party. If you are looking for an album that will make your 15" subwoofers and high-powered amp rattle your neighbor's windows, though, this may not be the album for you.

What really impresses me about this album is how well it is constructed lyrically. There really are no places where the attempts to preserve rhyme stretch so far that I had take a step away from the song because of the extreme amount of silliness.

While most of Fly School Reunion will just make you groove along with the music, Giant Panda adds some political flair in true independent hip-hop fashion. "3rd Party" and "Racist" are cultural critiques close to the end of the album. While "3rd Party" criticizes popular culture and music, "Racist" takes a more satirical approach to the subject of bigotry by spouting off numerous stereotypes and labels for Black, White, Hispanic, and Asian people. Listening to "Racist" is like watching an entire episode of The Chapelle Show in a little less than five minutes.

However, as with most albums in any genre, there are weak points within tracks and tracks that vigor of the others. The formulaic verse, chorus, verse construction stands out at a few points on the album because of the weakness of some of the hooks, especially on "Grand Prix" and "Always Dope." In comparison to other artists within the genre, Giant Panda’s hooks are not any worse. But if my Mom would not let me get a bad grade because the other students did, then Giant Panda does not get the privilege to write clichéd lyrics either.

Another feature of this album that makes it a hip-hop album unlike many others is the good portion of it that happens to be in Japanese. If you are curious, the Japanese lyrics also rhyme. Exactly what Chikaramanga is rapping about is not important because of how well it fits on the album. After listening, I hope Giant Panda never translates his lyrics because the sound of the language is just amazing on its own.

If Giant Panda’s sound continues to mature within college music charts, one day they may find themselves on the edges of popular hip-hop with talented artists like Talib Kweli and Mos Def.