iD, Avatar Hotel

reviewed by hiram lucke

iD is a rapper and one half of Mush Records' duo iD and Sleeper, as well as a member of the group Archetype when he’s not making appearances on countless other Lawrence, Kansas, and Kansas City area hip hop albums. Created with the help of producer and musician friends between 2003 and 2007, Avatar Hotel is an odds and sods collection of songs that haven’t found their way onto other projects that iD has worked on. That isn’t to say that these songs are throwaways relegated to box set tracks and one-offs, but rather that this album is a set of songs that needed a home and iD was smart enough to create one in Avatar Hotel.

The title of the album is essential to understanding the idea of a home for these songs. In Hindu philosophy, avatars are the earthly embodiment of a higher being, most often Vishnu. These avatars are representative of the stages of society, from early technological advances like pottery and the plough all the way to the Kali Yuga, a representation of the world's evolution into an anarchic state ruled by self-motivation. By giving each of these avatars a room within the same “building,” iD has self-consciously created the ideal place for his stories of emotional growth and enlightenment through hard work and simple living. Of course, avatars can be defined as they are in the world of computing: a representation of one’s self in a virtual reality, whether it be an online community or game. These two definitions of avatar and the fractured use of identity and the cycles of life and mankind are what make iD’s seemingly tossed together album work as a whole.

With production by Kansas City area producers like Miles Bonny, Topp Boom, Nezbeat, and the aforementioned Sleeper, as well as others like NYC duo Ming and FS, the album musically moves in many different directions, but iD does a wonderful job of using each song as a platform for his stories and identities. It starts with “It’s Done,” in which iD raps about the listener opening up to emotional growth, “Here we go again take a breath and hold it in, turn your head and open it up... open up your mind and I’ll put something nice inside it.” In “Truth in Trouble” he sketches a cold night in which he goes out for a walk where “every streetlight’s lookin’ like a pair of eyes” as he tries to figure out the problems in a life led without a center, with “little things” getting in the way of living a fulfilled life. From the party anthem for thinkers, “Feed Your Ego” (which also has a guest spot from KC/SF rapper Approach) to “I Tried” with its sampled Buffalo Springfield hook, iD displays a knack for thoughtful, sometimes melancholy, always interesting lines. That’s not to say that iD is the hip hop equivalent of an emo Spider Man -- far from it. In the Enoch Light Big Band-esque grooves of “Fire!” he sidesteps money-hungry and self-centered shallowness, focusing instead on a life in which working hard towards clarity and self awareness is the ultimate goal. Or as he says in “Sisyphus”:

Over and over and over again,
another one comes and another one goes.
Can it really be all so pointless and vain
If we leave a mark that remains?

And if that doesn’t make you want to buy it, then you should also know that this shit bumps. Seriously.

http://indistr.com/iD?view=AllMusic
http://www.mushrecords.com/artist/iD.php