Album Review Catch-Up, Part 1

05.14.09

There has been so much music coming out over the past few months that I’ve been neglecting a lot of album reviews for the simple fact that I don’t have a whole lot of time. By the time I finally sit down to do an album writeup, there’s 4 or 5 other albums that have my interest. It’s a blessing and a curse to live in this digital age, as we have so much great music right at our fingertips, but not enough time to digest and enjoy it before something new comes along. This especially a problem for someone like me, who loves collecting EVERYTHING. So for the sake of catching up with myself and saving myself time in the future (although a few of these reviews I have half-done already, but am scrapping in favor of this format), here is part one of all of the albums fit for coverage – now in bite size:

New Music: Slum Village, Cloud 9 [ft. Marsha Ambrosius]

05.04.09

Song: Cloud 9 [ft. Marsha Ambrosius]
Artist: Slum Village
Album: unknown
Label: Barak Records
Producer: unknown
Notes: 1st single from LP
Analysis: While no official album has been announced yet, Slum Village is back to putting out material as a group after a brief hiatus. T3, Baatin, Elzhi & now late producer J Dilla’s younger brother Illa J are the names, but I’m sure there’s still enough Dilla instrumentals to rhyme over to still consider him a member. On ‘Cloud 9′, the sound is a bit less subtle than some of their earlier work (probably due to Marsha Ambrosius’ guest singing rather than a vocal sample use), but it’s still a nice representation of what made the group underground legends in the first place.

New Music: J Dilla, Reality Check [ft. Black Thought]

04.22.09

Song: Reality Check [ft. Black Thought]
Artist: J Dilla
Album: Jay Stay Paid
Label: Nature Sounds
Producer: J Dilla
Notes: none
Analysis: Dilla’s music is still living on three years after his death, with a new collaboration album coming out this summer. On ‘Reality Check’, The Roots’ frontman Black Thought crams in the most reality tv show references in a song in the history of hip hop.

Mixtape Review / Download: Termanology, If Heaven Was a Mile Away (A Tribute to J Dilla)

01.01.09

I was skeptical at first of the intentions of this mixtape. I am quite sure that Termanology & late producer J Dilla (who passed in 2006) have never previously collaborated. Neither of them share any song credits to my knowledge, and at first I was afraid that the relatively-new MC was somehow capitalizing on the trend of saluting Dilla, who has become more known in death than he was in life. In 2007, Busta Rhymes also released a free mixtape called Dilla-gence, providing new vocals over unreleased Dilla beats, but they had been frequent collaborators throughout their careers. How can someone give a tribute to another person who they’ve never even known? If heaven was a mile away, would J Dilla even know who Termanology was? Then I remembered how good an album Termanology’s Politics as Usual was this past year. And I remembered how Term is one of the nicest upcoming artists in the hip hop world, and how his raw, energetic style is remeniscent of early New York rap that we’ve been badly missing for years now. So I started looking at this mixtape in a different light. Term is simply just a fan.