The Funky Autopsy: Myrlin is a Wizard After All

 Arizona is a hard place to love for a lot of artists and not just because of the heat. A lot of it has to do with the backwards politics that govern our state that runs contrary to the universal human rights often celebrated by the artistic community. Arizona is specifically hard for minorities. The prolific spoken word artist ,Myrlin Hepworth ,as a biracial (Mexican and Irish), is able to have his two feet in both worlds. With this he has the bifurcated vision that allows for a beautiful album to unfurl that’s uniquely Arizona. Now, Myrlin’s debut rap album, The Funky Autopsy, encapsulates much more than the struggles of an Arizona minority, as it is a “wibbidy wabbity” funkadelic breath of fresh air that deviates from the typical posturing that characterizes mainstream hip-hop. It’s a tapestry of stories, jokes, jests and love. But most of all it’s truth. When listening to the album, it’s easy to believe everything Myrlin says because he’s not trying to be something he’s not. And that’s important and rare to achieve with hip-hop. Instrumentally, the album is spectacular. Myrlin seems to prefer live drum beats in the style of The Roots over the typical hip-hop beats, which will make this a fun album to hear live. The production shows that Myrlin has a taste for a lot of different types of music. There’s even a Cody Chesnutt sample on the track “Germination 2.0: Roots, Seeds, and a Chesnutt.“ It’s a very bright and light-hearted album for the most part–something you can play with your favorite girl or boy and smoke, dance or drive along a hot and dusty Arizona freeway with and feel cool. It’s very funky. Lyrically, Myrlin, who is a much sought after performer, does not disappoint. There is a lot of depth to his lyrics, but at the same time they are highly populist. They are a multi-layered portmanteau that offers something for anyone at any age. And it’s appropriate for any age–a hard thing to pull off in a rap album. My favorite track is definitely Mixaca: Bedroom Eyes. It’s a song that has a heavy bass line a laid-back drum beat, a bit of heavenly orchestration and a subtle guitar riff. The story, however, is even better. He recounts a relationship he had with a girl with epilepsy who has an electric mind, both literally and figuratively. There are so many beautiful lines in the song, but the stanzas that end the song especially pull a chord in my heart strings — “Mixaca, your body’s cove/the sea I roamed the day we relapsed/ and you came back home./Waves crashed like a flashback in my eyelash/Hope you know that I love you.” A track that might become a theme song for Arizona protests is his song “Arizona I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down.” In this track, Myrlin raps that “Listen little man,/This is how they call you a crook./First flip through that history book./Funny how so few faces belong to Black,/ Brown, Latinos and Asians/ Reflections? Mug shots on the evening/news.” Yet,. Myrlin isn’t just a socially aware rapper with a pension for writing love songs. He also can strut in battle rapper form. The track The Funky Autopsy is wicked in delivery. Myrlin points at other rappers with his tenor voice as a clarion to proclaim his grab a spot in hip-hop “Hip-Hop colors my mouth like the blues./The shade of my voice, you couldn’t/measure the hue/Shit, I pity the fool tryin’ to place me in a box/I’m real hip-hop/The puppets like Lamb Chop.” This is the first Lamb Chop diss I’m aware of, and I think it’s awesome. Overall, The Funky Autopsy is a theme park that offers rides for anybody willing to go on a ride through the maze that is Myrlin’s brain which is connected to his heart that beats according to the multitudinous rhythms of Arizona’s collective soul. It’s funk, it’s soul, it’s love. He must love Arizona to bless us with this album. Grade: 9/10