Reviews – Page 2 – Grown Up Rap

Album Review: Wu-Tang Clan’s A Better Tomorrow

Hype is one thing, but deep down we all knew that the long-awaited Wu-Tang Clan album was never going to be classic. Now that A Better Tomorrow is finally here, its even more of a disappointment than we feared.

It’s not terrible, and still better than 8 Diagrams, but hardly vintage Wu. We didn’t expect them to make the same kind of album they did 20 years ago; hip-hop has moved on since then, and with the average age of a clansman now around 45, so have they. We did expect it to be a better tomorrow than this though, especially having had to wait so long, and after so much in-fighting to get it done.

The biggest problem is a lack of enthusiasm, with none of the group member’s hearts seemingly in it. Even verses from the four best rappers in the group – Ghostface Killer, Raekwon, GZA and Inspectah Deck – sound phoned in, with lyrics that do nothing more than go through the motions.

It would be naive to think that all of the members were in the same room at the same time when they recorded, but its this lack of coherence, both emotionally and geographically, that stops A Better Tomorrow from sounding like a genuine group album. The only rapper that still sounds fresh and energized is Method Man, but its hard for one man to keep the excitement levels up when everyone else around him is flat.

Ironically, considering how passionate he seemed to be about making the album happen, the best beats are those not produced by RZA, with standouts including 40th Street Black/We Will Fight and Keep Watch (both produced by Mathematics), and the Adrian Younge produced Crushed Egos. RZA does put in some good beat work, especially on Hold the Heater, but there’s a sense of laziness and self-indulgence in sampling/riffing on Dusty Springfield’s Son of a Preacher Man on Preacher’s Daughter.

Not the return to glory we’d hoped for then, but not quite a complete trainwreck. There’s some life left in the Wu, and the likes of Ghostface will no doubt keep on making good music forever, but its difficult to predict just how much further these legends of the game can make it as a team.

A Better Tomorrow is out December 2 on Warner Bros.

Review: Joey Bada$$ live in London

Lets be really honest for a moment. Most live hip-hop shows are disappointing. Late arrival from the artist, too much crowd hyping and not enough rapping, bad mic quality, short set lengths. We’ve experienced them all, even from some of our favorite acts.

We still had high hopes for the Joey Bada$$ tour, and on the whole it didn’t disappoint when we caught one of the shows in London. The set-up was classic no frills hip-hop: Joey on the mic, with a deejay out back. No more flash or flair required. For a rapper like Bada$$, still just 19 but making the kind of hip-hop that throws back to the classic era, its an environment that suits him well. When the deejay also happens to be Statik Selektah, its even better.

It turns out Joey knows how to rock a crowd too. Full of energy but without the unnecessary and over-the-top swagger of other acts, he lets his music do the talking, giving us proper versions of his biggest tracks.

Obvious standouts included Waves, truthfully one of the finest hip-hop tracks of all time (yeah, we said it), and the DJ Premier produced Unorthodox. There was also the obligatory heartfelt tribute to fallen Pro Era member Capital Steez, reminding us all just how tragic it is to lose a talented rapper at only 19 years of age.

With a decent live show, teaser trailers and documentaries, the hype over Joey’s debut album B4.Da.$$ just keeps on getting stronger. It drops January 20, 2015.

Meet the genius bringing you Meow the Jewels

The name Sly Jones probably doesn’t mean that much to you, but he’s the part genius, part madman who worked hard as hell to make Meow the Jewels a reality. He recently got to hook up with El-P and Killer Mike before their show in his hometown of Phoenix, and broke down how the project came about.

Bored one night on Twitter, he read El-P’s tweet about remaking Run the Jewels 2 with cat sounds, and took it upon himself to take it seriously. It’s shit like this that the internet was invented for, and we can’t wait to hear how it turns out.

Considering how money from the project is going to the families of Eric Garner, Michael Brown and the fight against Police brutality, Run the Jewels take time in the interview to remind us that this whole crazy project also has a serious side, and will hopefully help to raise the profile of the issues at stake.

Watch the clip below, including shots of Sly Jones joining the group on stage – surely the ultimate experience for any music fan.

RTJ2 is out now on Mass Appeal. Read our review here.

Listen to a new PRhyme track from Primo and Royce Da 5’9″

Its been a good few weeks for us DJ Premier heads. A crazy interview with Snoop Dogg, where he dropped teasers about that future Nas album, new music from M.O.P. coming soon, and of course, PRhyme, his latest collaboration with Royce Da 5’9″.

We’ve had some clips of the music already, but now we’ve been blessed with the title track too. Primo is assisted on the beat with samples by Adrian Young, who adds some extra little flourishes to the mix.

It’s another impressive sign of the quality that is no doubt set to come when the album is fully released next month. Listen to the new track here, courtesy of our friends at the always-entertaining EgoTripland.

PRhyme is already available for pre-order in some areas. Look out for our review when it drops.

Rare old video of MF Doom way before the mask

Images of MF Doom without the mask on are rare. Dig around YouTube and you’ll find some of those old KMD videos with him in, back when he was known as Zed Love X. Since then though, clear shots of the man with the government name Daniel Dumile have been hard to come by.

Look closely at the Viktor Vaughn Mr Clean video and you do catch some glimpses, but these are obscured by the animation. It all adds to the mystique of course, and its one of the things we love most about the mythical Metal Face Doom.

A little insight is nice once in a while though, which makes this little gem of a video doing the rounds yesterday a bit special. Its from 1991, where a fresh-faced 19 year old Zed Love X addresses congress peeps about Rock the Vote and other initiatives to get young people voting.

It’s interesting to hear him drop knowledge, but even more fascinating when you remember this is the same man that has gone on to give us so much good music since. Watch the clip here:

http://www.c-span.org/video/standalone/?c4513596

Read our review of NehruvianDOOM here.

Watch Pyramid Vritra on Rhythm Roulette

Rhythm Roulette is one of the best hip-hop video series we’ve ever seen, and we can’t get enough of the rush of new episodes that have arrived in the past few weeks. The latest producer to don the bandana and try their luck is Pyramid Vritra (aka Hal Williams, one half of Odd Future affiliates The Jet Age of Tomorrow), who’s impressive debut album Indra dropped on Stones Throw Records earlier this year.

As always, the trip to the record store throws some curve balls, but Pyramid just about manages to make it work. Watch below to find out how it turned out.

Pyramid Vritra’s Indra is out now.

Nas previews new J Dilla track at Run the Jewels press event

Just when we thought the hype around Run the Jewels 2 couldn’t get any hyper, a special press conference in New York City last night took the situation into overdrive. El-P and Killer Mike were joined on stage by none other than Nas, who seems to be taking his role as Mass Appeal boss seriously.

The legend gave some supportive words to the label’s hottest act, before then giving us all one hell of a treat: a preview of a track from his next album. New music from Nas is always exciting, but when it turns out the track uses a J Dilla beat, that excitement reaches a whole new plain.

Rabid Dilla Dawg fans will instantly recognize the beat as Gobstopper from Donuts. To now have Nas drop vocals over it is an incredible look.

Watch the full video below, and check out our review of the incredible RTJ2.

Run the Jewels 2 is out now on Mass Appeal.

Listen to a Time is Illmatic mix from Pete Rock

Time is Illmatic is showing in cinemas around the world right now, and to celebrate, Pete Rock has blessed up with a new Nas mixtape.

As the producer of one of the classic album’s finest tracks (The World is Yours), there’s few people more qualified than Pete, and he does a fine job reminding us of just how groundbreaking Illmatic was. Not that we’d forgotten of course.

Check below for the full stream, and see here for our review of the Time is Illmatic documentary.

Visit the Time is Illmatic website to find out if the film is showing in your town. It is also available from iTunes in some regions.

Album Review: Blasphemy – a record of two halves from Ras Kass & Apollo Brown

Ah, Ras Kass. He started off so well with his first solo records, the Golden State Warriors projects and all those other great features. Then came all the legal drama, and those promising albums that never saw the light of day.

All that seems to be in the past now though, with Rassy back making good music. Blasphemy sees his team up with Apollo Brown, a talented producer who’s released a steady run of quality material over the last few years, collaborating with Guilty Simpson, OC and others.

Unfortunately, Blasphemy is an album of two different halves: one good, the other a bit boring. The first half is the good one, with impressive beats from Brown, and some sharp observations from Ras, plus features from always reliable artists like Pharoahe Monch, Rakaa and Xzibit.

Then we get to the second half. The way most people listen to music these days means albums don’t tend to flow in a sequence like they used to. But some thought still needs to go into how tracks are ordered. With Blasphemy, all the good stuff has been put up front, with the lesser tracks dumped in the back.

There isn’t anything badly wrong with those lesser tracks, they just lack the same punch and urgency of the first few. Apollo’s beats also tend to sound the same after more than a handful of tracks, and the cross-over attempt Too Much of a Good Thing doesnt suit Ras’ style one bit.

Not a bad project overall then, but unlikely to be bothering the top spot come album of the year retrospectives in a couple of months time.

Blasphemy it out now on Mello Music Group.

Album Review: Why RTJ2 is the Godfather Part II of hip-hop

That old line about how movie sequels rarely live up to the original has always applied to music too. The so-called sophomore jinx has ruined the career of many an artist, never quite hitting the same heights as a classic debut.

With Run the Jewels 2, El-P and Killer Mike have gone and pulled a Godfather Part II. If last year’s debut album was a modern classic, then Run the Jewels 2 is even better. It’s darker, dirtier and way more fucked-up than the original, and all the better for it.

What we have here is two artists high as a kite on confidence from just how well their music is being received. For lesser acts, this can lead to complacency. For others, it brings out the best in them. Jamie and Mike know how good they are, and they know we know how good they are.

That’s why RTJ2 is almost the perfect album, with virtually every track the kind you want to listen to again and again. Standouts include Jeopardy, Oh My Darling Don’t Cry, and Close Your Eyes with Zack de la Rocha, who reminds us all that while he may not make rap music, he can rap with the best of them. El-P’s production work is impeccable; weird enough to be his own signature sound, but accessible and head-nodding enough to keep it grounded. As for the lyrics, both rappers are angry as hell, and it works like a charm.

The true genius of Run the Jewels, still one of the most unlikely collaborations in hip-hop, is that both artists have approached it as blank canvas, despite each one having a huge backlog of music to their name. It doesnt matter if you know everything that has come before (the classic Company Flow and Def Jux material from El-P, the Outkast features from Mike), or if this is the first time you’ve come across them. We are all on the the same page at this point, and by discarding any preconceptions of the music we expect them to release, Run the Jewels are making exactly the type of music they want to.

On those rare occasions where a movie sequel does live up to the original, the one after that is usually garbage. Watch Godfather Part III if you don’t believe us. Run the Jewels is a saga we want to see rolling on forever, and judging by the new album, things are only going to keep getting better.

Don’t forget that RTJ2 being out means we are also one step closer to getting Meow the Jewels, potentially the most incredible album in the history of music ever. Or maybe not. Only time will tell. Until then, enjoy what’s probably the best work that either of these two guys have ever produced. And when you do consider the music they have been involved in before now, that’s some accolade.

RTJ2 is out now on Mass Appeal.