Publication: Herald Sun [US]
Date: December 4, 1996
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Title: Herald Sun Review
Reviewed By: Nui Te Koha

5/5 stars

This could easily have spiralled into --- like most grunge albums, for instance --- a tawdry, chest-beating sermon on loathing the record company and other trendy, downer topics-of-the-week.

But 'Emancipation' is irrefutable evidence of TAFKAP's staying power. Here, he has reinvented and re-established himself as the leader of the crossover -- straddling pop, funk, rock, jazz, blues and pompous, over-blown ballads -- with 36 tracks that revisits facets of his career, but strongly hint at the dangerous magic yet to come.

Thematically, 'Emancipation' is big on romance: TAFKAP focuses more on the freedom from his horny, insatiable alter ego than the recording contract with Warner.

That issue is addressed, but TAFKAP keeps it general and short (only 'White Mansion' and 'Slave' touch on it).

For the most part, TAFKAP is intent on packaging his music on his own terms: weird and wonderful experiments ('My Computer', 'The Human Body', 'Soul Sanctuary'), and moments of pure pop all with an undercurrent of funk, the whole funk and nothing but the funk. A genius by any other name.