MP3 + Video: Wafeek "Feekee and the Flux Capacitor"

As the Back to the Future reference suggests, time travel is involved. Most tracks are R&B and rock classics re-constructed and re-imagined with Feek ryhmes. Highlights include three Beatles cuts (all from Sgt. Peppers), Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell's "Real Thing," Marvin's "Mercy Me," and, gulp, Nirvana's "Sappy." The Fab Four songs--especially the infectiously catchy and clever version of "My Friends"-- are phenomenal. Others have strengths (syrupy pop charm on "Real Thing") and weaknesses (Lyrics like "I bet you wonder how I knew/the password to your MySpace Page" on Gaye's "Grapevine").

It's also a satirical tribute to T-Pain's favorite production technique and the bane du juor of Top 40 rap: Auto-Tune. Appropriately, then, there are at least a dozen samples of Kanye's 808's and Heartbreak, including a wickedly self-depreciating take on "Amazing," complete with the line: "...and then I came too quick/cause I'm a bitch."

Finally, it's a break-up record. Almost all the songs allude, in one form or another, to parting ways with his ex-girlfriend on not-so-friendly terms. This leads to hate-fueled lines like "Ridin' the high horse/baby's so pretentious/make me rip the bathroom door off the hinges," and moments of levity, like Rockwell Knuckles showing up to provide moral support, spitting, "Sorry you lost your pootnanny provider/ only means it's time find something more fire with more money and less mouth."  

So, if you're keeping score at home, it's a concept album on three levels. Convoluted? Perhaps. Hilarious? Occasionally. Original? Definitely.