New JDO Download: "Devotion" (Plus Album Review and Release Party Tonight at Western Front)

Published Jul 22 2009, 06:34 PM by Chris Faraone

If you’ve been to any Boston rap show in the past two years, then you’ve likely seen a spectacled kid named Matteo Getz working the room like a Copacabana cigarette girl circa 1955. He’s one of local hip-hop’s most persistent mixtape slingers, but, as it turns out - at least judging by his work on JDO’s new full-length Talent - his behind-the-boards game is comparably tight.

Unlike Getz, JDO hardly frequents local venues (unless he’s rocking, as he will be this Thursday at the Western Front). However; he’s a competent performer and relative veteran, having put in hella work with Kreators producer G-Squared, who produced four cuts here, and who is currently tasting the sweeter side of life as a resident DJ at various clubs in Las Vegas.

As is made evident by his latest hard-body of work, JDO is quite grown up now, with family, a secure gig as Malden’s go-to fade guy at Perfect Style, and a look away from fast-life whores and drug-addled nights (I wonder if he’s gone to visit G-Squared at the Wynn yet). Overall, Talent is a remarkably honest, yet hardly preachy anomaly that belongs in any real rap collection.

To be honest, I wasn’t expecting this disc to be so outstanding; the title track (which I heard way before the whole project) is the weakest link. That said - beyond that - I’m thoroughly impressed by this “man who didn’t care what your group did,” and who’s “calling you out for looping 80s pop music.”