What's most striking about Jone Emmbbry's debut album, Monkey Butt, is its lack of resemblance to anything she ever did on The Tonight Show.
Sure, there are animal sounds, but that's just to underline the theme in such hard-driving ghetto joints as "I want to F**k You Like I F***ed the Producer of My Special on The Discovery Channel." It's a new side of Jone (real name Joan Embry) that positively gyrates as it throws nets around the escaping tigers, that feeds the chimps with a hip-hop beat. The less hardcore cut "Jungle Jone" is a fresh trunk blast into the otherwise stagnant pachyderm wading pool that is present-day pop music.
Not only does Jone get down and dirty, her gritty solo vocal work on the soul-inspired "Monkey Mama" gives the listener flashbacks of Janis Joplin's long lost (but recently rediscovered) album Me Jane.
Add to the mix some serious turntable magic from DJ Marlyn Perquinz and you've got an album energized like no rap record since, like, 1991 or something.
Joan, or Jone rather, we didn't know you had it in you. But we're sure glad you decided to let it out of its cage.