5.1.nine.0.2. is a Canadian hip hop duo, consisting of emcee Derek Mackenzie and producer Recordface. Their name comes from the combination of area codes for both artists, bringing together Nova Scotia (Mackenzie) and Ontario (Recordface). Mackenzie’s roots go back to the early ‘90s, when he was part of the group Hip Club Groove, which also had affiliations with Sixtoo and Buck 65. Recordface doesn’t go back quite as far, but got started in the mid-‘00s with the group OK Cobra along with emcee Fritz tha Cat. Mackenzie had actually been out of the game for a while, deciding to focus on family life instead, but Recordface was introduced to him through a mutual friend and started sending him beats. Mackenzie started writing to them, and before they knew it, they had a full-length album on their hands, When a Name is Just a Number.

This album exists in an unusual space for me. On paper, I love the idea of this album. I love the idea of Recordface coaxing an older emcee who helped establish the hip hop scene in Nova Scotia out of retirement to give us one more album. I love that it’s a concise ten songs long. However, in practice I don’t enjoy it nearly enough. One barrier for me is Mackenzie’s sung choruses, and sometimes even lines within the verses, which often come across in an emo or even nu-metal fashion. Those are styles of music that I was never a fan of, so it’s hard for me to get past it on a personal level. I respect that other listeners won’t mind that part as much as me, though. The real barrier for me, though, is that for an older emcee, Mackenzie doesn’t come across as a mature, skilled veteran who can show us how it’s done. Instead, he often sounds like a teenager, with unfocused angst and girl problems. And this is where I have a really hard time getting into the album. Recordface is a talented producer, and there are a couple of songs in which he’s able to lay down some hot boom bap beats and just get Mackenzie in the pocket of groove, where he can talk some trash about hip hop, such as on “One More Rhyme,” featuring Check Love and Speak Easy. If the album was always like this, we’d be fine. It wouldn’t be anything groundbreaking, but it would be fun. Unfortunately, there is just so much more of the album that is immature and unfocused. A song like “Rainbows & Unicorns” really encapsulates a lot of what’s wrong with this album. I’m here for a song that rails against the system and calls out societies flaws when it’s done well and communicates these issues in such a way that it sparks thoughtful conversation. I’m not here for a song that sounds like a confused teenager who is angry but doesn’t exactly know why or how to express themselves. That’s what is happening on this song, which features the head-scratching chorus of “Rainbows and unicorns, gods and leprechauns, corporate Decepticons, all run the Pentagon!” If that doesn’t make much sense to you, neither will the verses, which also seem to be full of random anarchist phrases such as “Burn it down!,” but never connect to form any deeper thoughts that offer up specific criticisms of government, religion, capitalism, or anything else. When we move to tales about girls, we don’t fare much better. “Water Tower” appears to have a desire to be a thoughtful reminiscence about a first love, but falters due to confusing metaphors, unimaginative imagery, and some deeply ingrained sexism. The song features a chorus of “At the water tower, I felt her power/She took it from me, and gave it away/I wish I’d have kept it, I could have used it later/She took it from me, and gave it away.” After hearing this chorus, I found myself confused and a little concerned that the narrator seems to be blaming an unnamed girl for taking his virginity. After setting the scene for two verses about how he was a loser in school, we finally get to meet this mysterious woman in verse three, although we’re still not given much to go on, other that she was older than him and that she had powers, and they would skip school to make out. As we finally get to the water tower, we never learn what happened, why the narrator feels hurt, or what happened afterward to her. We’re just left with the narrator saying that he wished he never met her. If this was an album from some eighteen-year-old kid, I might be tempted to grade this on a curve, hoping that they could mature and figure some things out. Coming from a veteran emcee and family man like Mackenzie, it’s just incredibly frustrating and disappointing.

There’s a reason why you can’t always go off a press release. All the information leading up to the making of this album was incredibly promising. I thought I was really going to enjoy this album. In practice, though, I kind of wish Mackenzie had stayed retired if this was the effort he was going to give us. It’s just an incredibly messy and immature lyrical effort on his part, and it derails any chance this album had of being fun and enjoyable.