Ol’ Dirty Bastard’s Return to the 36 Chambers (33 1/3)

Two decades after its release, the Ol' Dirty Bastard's Return to the 36 Chambers: The Dirty Version is the rare hip-hop album that sounds as fresh and funny as on the day of its release. With a never-replicated style, the most obscene man in show business rhymed a chronicle of the nastiest thoughts put on record, bringing hip-hop to a place where it could be dirty and stinking.Much beloved and purchased, Return was not only a comedic masterpiece, but also a meditation on the nature of freedom and the power of swearing. By connecting the Ol' Dirty Bastard to a forgotten literary tradition, this book demonstrates that the rapper's artistry contained a profound repudiation of shame, and offered rich themes that have gone unexplored. Taking the ODB beyond the headlines, Jarett Kobek also explores the consequences of the wild tales that provided years of tabloid fare, suggesting that beneath the shock value was a very serious story ignored by almost everyone. A Black man in America refused to acknowledge social control and was crushed by the American criminal justice system. Is it possible that by recording his shameless message, the Ol' Dirty Bastard doomed himself to a short lifetime of police harassment and prison violence?