Philadelphia rapper Amanda Mallory picked a fitting moniker. On her
debut album, Amanda Blank glides through chilly beats and a detached
demeanor as empty as her soulless vocals. It’s hipster hip-hop with
raunchy rhymes about fucking designed to shock, awe and wink at its
equally hip audience. But Blank is way too self-conscious to pull it
off. It doesn’t help that the various producers (including Diplo) fill
the space with beats ranging from merely robotic to totally annoying.
But I Love You‘s biggest problem is Blank, whose hipster
cred rose a few years back with an appearance on a Spank Rock track.
Spread out over far-from-breezy 33 minutes, she comes off like a
naughty little girl who just figured out she can make people squirm by
rapping about her cooter. Pretty vacant. — Gallucci
This article appears in Aug 12-18, 2009.
