1992 - Review
1992 was a hell of a year, and rapper The Game remembers it well. Embers of unrest were fanned by the savage beating of Rodney King by four police office, and the entire city of Los Angeles burst into violence after their acquittal. It was like a bonfire erupting. Six days. One billion in damages. 55 dead. 2000 wounded. The National Guard, Army, and Marines had to be deployed to finally quell the riots. It wasn’t a pretty time and it did a huge amount of damage to relations between the people and the police. It’s remembered every day in communities across the country. The Game watched looting and violence as he stood in the rift between red and blue, Crip and Blood, vying for control.
Read More…The Healing Component - Review
Love is a powerful force. Tackling it is a difficult proposition, but that does not stop Mick Jenkins from trying to talk about what makes love, how we love, and why we should love in his debut album The Healing Component. For a first venture, it is an ambitious one, as he delivers a high concept album on how love has the ability to drastically effect a life. To him, love is The Healing Component, and through an application of loving each other, and a fair amount marijuana, he thinks we can all become better people. He builds this idea through conversations broken up and peppered throughout the album in which we learn more about his idea of love and his experiences with it as a young woman interviews him. “Have you ever loved someone differently?” she asks, calling up vivid memories from him, and from the listener as they work their way through what love really is.
blond - Review
It’s been years since Channel Orange, and fans everywhere have been eagerly awaiting the next project from Frank Ocean. Perhaps a little too fervently. But in the last few years, the world has changed. Music has changed. And I don’t know if any of us quite expected what we got. Blonde is simultaneously somber and rich, a eulogy for the childhood of his past. Ocean is growing up, coming to accept himself for who he is. It is melancholic and drawn out, forming only one part of an experience toiled over for years. There’s Blonde, a free magazine, and the visual album Endless that all come together as a part of his grand vision of who Frank Ocean is today.
Prima Donna - Review
I’m an unapologetic fan of Vince Staples. Summertime ’06 was my album of the year last year, edging out some really fantastic offerings to take my top spot. It carried with it a huge amount of raw emotional power that hit me like a punch in the gut, and still does, every time I listen to it. I’ve been eagerly awaiting his next project ever since. Prima Donna was not exactly what I expected. Short, strange, powerful, and so very Vince Staples, the album does a good job at giving you a hint of the new direction that he is taking himself in.
Jeffrey - Review
I feel like I have had to offer a disclaimer when recommending Young thug to people over the last few months. Giving caveats to how much I liked Slime Season 3. Only listen to this if you are in the mood for club tracks. Not for easy listening. And more of these same excuses to one of my favorite albums of the first half of the year. With the release of Jeffrey, Thugger seems to have matured. So I can finally say, without reservations, that you should listen to this album. He has dialed back the brash intensity for something far more personal, without loosing the energy and bombastic flair that makes Young Thug so much fun to listen to.
untitled unmastered - Review
It’s always a good day when a new album drops. It’s a great day when one drops unexpectedly. And following the early release of To Pimp A Butterfly last year, Kendrick Lamar continues to surprise with a new album that came out of nowhere and landed in our laps. It’s a good day.
Acid Rap - Review
“Here’s a tab of acid for your ear.”
Chancellor Bennett’s second mixtape, Acid Rap, looked to follow the success of the first, 10 Day, by going so far outside of the mold for what a mixtape should be. It’s so different from 10 Day, and other projects out of Chicago like ComfortZone or Innatape. Taking us through the experience of living in Chicago, Chance the Rapper weaves raps about drugs, violence, love, and family together in one of the more sonically diverse mixtapes that you can get your hands on. Read More…
To Pimp A Butterfly - Review
Kendrick Lamar is a powerhouse of West-coast rap, and his new album, To Pimp a Butterfly, just reinforces this idea even more. After Good Kid M.A.A.D City, fireball debut in 2012, fans were left wondering, could Lamar top this effort, and after three years of waiting, that question can be answered.
HERE - Review
Positivity can be easily forgotten. When things are looking down, we need a different message. And the last few months have been very negative. Hate is always just round the corner for all of us. And it is here where HERE shines. It is, essentially, a conversation about identity and self in the new America. About figuring out who you are, your anger, your insecurities, your hopes, and your fears, and thinking about how you are now. How you are stronger and more beautiful for the presence of all of your flaws. “Stretch marks are your beauty scars.” It is a different kind of positive message than the sickly sweet bubblegum pop that we have too much of. “When a girl can’t be herself no more / I just wanna cry, cry for the world.”
We got it from Here... Thank You 4 Your service - Review
It can be really hard to talk about some albums. To get across exactly what is going on in the layers of music that the artist has built up. The better the album is, the more difficulty I have talking about them in a way that I feel does them justice. It would be the easiest review in the world to say that an album was trash, and convince you of it. But to say that an album is excellent? Amazing? It becomes increasingly difficult to make that point in a way that carries the full weight the album holds. I'll say this without reservations, We got it from Here... Thank You 4 Your service is hands down one of the best albums to come out this year, and if you care at all about hip-hop, you should listen to this album.
John Wick: Chapter 2 - Review
It is damn hard to do action well. Harder yet is to do it twice in a row. John Wick crashed into the action scene and made an indelible mark with stylish and well-choreographed action, a highly stylized aesthetic, and an interesting world to back it all up. It took the old writer’s adage of “show, don’t tell” to heart in a way that few films do, and with it created a compelling story that dragged you in and made you want to learn more. Chapter 2 had the incredibly difficult task of following this up well. John flirts with the underworld in the first, and as he walked away with his new friend at the end, we were left to wonder if he was truly back, or if he was going to try to pick up the pieces of his shattered life.