Lil Clitty
Sweet Release

At first glance Lil Clitty seems as if she might be gunning to become Vancouver’s answer to CupcakKe. Track titles like “The D”, “My Ass”, and “Cum” seem like they came straight out of the filth-filled catalogue of the woman who gave us the deathless “Duck Duck Goose” and “Spider-Man Dick”.

Depending on how seriously you think hip-hop artists ought to take their on-stage personas, you may or may not be disappointed to learn that Lil Clitty is basically a character. As played by local actor Ese Atawo (who has racked up small roles in just about every TV series lensed locally, from Continuum and iZombie to Supergirl and The Flash), the rapper known euphemistically as Lil C is as dirty-minded and potty-mouthed as the aforementioned titles suggest. She’s also given to non sequiturs like “I get so horny when you garden and you read to at-risk youth” (from “Average Joe”).

If that sounds vaguely surreal, check out “Hate Track”, on which Lil C airs a petty grievance she’s been carrying with her since high school. Someone named “Ronnie” then takes over for the second half of the track, and he spends his allotted verses dissing Garfield. As in the comic-strip cat. (Is this a bad time to mention that CupcakKe’s last album included a song called “Garfield”?)

So, yes, this is some funny shit, but there’s some bite behind the laughs. “Rappin Ain’t Hard” proves, through counterexample, that rapping well actually is hard. “The D” is about, well, dicks (and possibly vitamin D), but it’s also about using sex as a substitute for therapy—sort of like “Fuck the Pain Away” if Peaches possessed a sense of humour.

Like most comedy-rap records (with the possible exception of the Lonely Island’s Incredibad), Sweet Release doesn’t really hold up after the first listen. But that’s okay, because how many times do you want to hear the same joke?