MASTA ACE

MA_Doom: Son of Yvonne

mastaace.com

In the flashback skit that begins this hip-hop nostalgia trip, young Duval Clear rechristens himself Masta Ace. The Brooklyn MC has used that tag for nearly a quarter century, influencing scores of better known rappers, but this album’s subtitle, Son of Yvonne, is perhaps the meaningful pseudonym. After all, it was Duval’s mom’s record collection—romanticized on “Ninteen Seventy Something”—that first got him scratching, rhyming and dreaming of the limelight. As he recounts his rise from Brownsville break-dancer (“we was in the park, popping like hot chicken”) to underground rap hero, dropping easy-does-it verses over producer MF Doom’s soul-jazz backings, Ace comes off as gracious and effortlessly cool—a ghetto poet whose momma raised him right.