The North Pole

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MF Grimm, aka Percy Carey, followed up his American Hunger three-disc three-course meal with a lighter treat for dessert, The Hunt for the Gingerbread Man. It's candy rap in the most literal sense of the phrase; Grimm takes the fairy tale of the gingerbread man and asks, "What if at the end of the story the gingerbread man escaped from the fox's stomach, went on a crime spree, became a badass MC, and released an album telling his side of the story?" This isn't the kind of idea that occurs to everyone who's heard the story of the gingerbread man, but making unusual ideas work has been a specialty for Grimm ever since he first called his crew the Monsta Island Czars. He takes on the role of "Gingy" in this loosely themed concept album, rapping about his candy-related crimes and making clever puns about dough and crackers and being half-baked while mentioning in passing that he murdered the Cookie Monster. The witty verses are let down a little by some repetitive choruses, but the uniqueness of the basic idea -- like if Doughboy from Boyz N the Hood's name were literal -- carries it over some of those bumps. Another bump comes from the production, which is sometimes flat and anemic, lying static under the rhymes when it could be buoying them up. A remix of "Head in the Clouds" that closes the album does just that, taking the original and elevating it to the heavens that Grimm raps about violently cleaning up. As well as working on the level of a witty concept, The Hunt for the Gingerbread Man works on a more poignant level as well. When the cookie crumbles, Percy Carey gives listeners a glimpse of the reality behind the frosting-coated fantasy, the MC sitting in his wheelchair (he was paralyzed in a shooting in 1994), daydreaming about being a character who can outrun anybody. ~ Jody Macgregor, All Music Guide