- Where I'm Not Wanted
- Follow the Leader
- Down to the River
- Rumors
- If You Can
- Love Me (feat. Pigeon John)
- Farewell My Dignity
- Interlude
- Good Samaritan Get Down (feat. Playdough)
- Swing Low
- Call Me Mister
- Second Wind
- Favorite Nightmare
- Interlude 2
- So So (feat. Red Cloud)
- Nintendo Thumb
- Smile on Me
Sure, they'll go Platinum on the strength of a ringtone or a silly breakout single, but rappers who go by their legal name are rarely taken seriously: Will Smith … Paul Wall … Mike Jones … Ray Buchanan … Matisyahu (OK, maybe that one's a stretch). Which makes Heath McNease an interesting anomaly. The newcomer seems like the type that wouldn't care much whether you take him seriously or not. As a white, indie rapper who started out pursuing a career in theater, the odds seem stacked against him.
McNease is content with making the music he loves—hip-hop with dashes of whatever. I say "whatever" because his debut, The Heath McNease Club Meets Tonight is not something you can easily put in a box. A lazy comparison would be Christian-rap peers like KJ-52 or John Reuben, but collectively Fanclub is much more layered than either emcee's work.
The hip-hop component is a homegrown, chiefly underground soundtrack that recalls the work of veterans Ill Harmonics and Playdough. The similarity to those acts is no fluke—Play-doug-H himself co-wrote and produced the bulk of this disc, and McNease is all the better for it. Fanclub can be classic, offbeat, poppy, melodic, self-deprecating, funny, serious, spiritual…sometimes all of the above in the course of the same track.
There's no better proof of this all-over-the-place sound and sense of humor than "Down to the River," a half-sung, half-rapped confessional about McNease's convictions (and then some): "God and God alone is the only reason I haven't been arrested several times/My permanent record's spotless, unless you count that hostage situation in '99." The album isn't always as ridiculously brilliant, but with further tutelage, McNease could easily get there one day. His Fanclub may not ever number in the millions, but he deserves one nonetheless.