Review: Definition of Knowledge, Gentrify This
On Gentrify This, Definition of Knowledge — "a spoken word duo who list diversity as their number-one talent” — offers 13 sharp send-ups of slam poetry’s tropes and their own group dynamic.
In less capable hands, the concept might wear out before its runtime, but Hannan Younis (What We Do In The Shadows) and Bryn Pottie (Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs) instead prove its range. The duo are deft at lampooning the rhythms of their chosen style, offering lines like “putting the truth on my visa card — declined!” with pitch-perfect delivery.
Each track on Gentrify This recounts one of their appearances around town: opening for a family band, as the money-saving entertainment at school assembly, a keynote presentation at a workplace with diversity issues, or an argument with a transit driver, to name a few. Each one is hilarious and unpredictable, enhanced by the constantly shifting tensions between Younis and Pottie: the latter’s discomfort in helping perform one of Younis’s poems called My Chocolate Body is a highlight, as is Pottie’s dawning realization on Slammin’ in the Six that his partner is borrowing lines from DMX (Younis vehemently denies it before doubling down).
The recording’s production elements further heighten its content: the various host preambles to their sets, or the scattered and frequently affected audience responses richly develop the world they operate in. To call it parody seems reductive here: Definition of Knowledge matches an exceptional send-up of style with equally well-honed substance.
Gentrify This was released February 14, 2020 on Howl & Roar Records.
Listen to it here.
77 Likes, 2 Comments - @definitionofknowledge on Instagram: "Album available now! https://smarturl.it/GentrifyThis"