Tag: race

audio review : Xodus ( album ) … X Clan

audio review : Xodus ( album ) ... X Clan

Professor X should rap more. The tribesman does so on only a few songs here; his flamboyant bars actually sound more like spoken-word poetry; but he’s a delight to listen to. Fire And Earth, on which him and lead MC Brother J go back and forth, is a standout. Other songs follow in the bootprints of the first album by relying on familiar soul samples to make funky their philosophical and religious lessons.

What’s interesting is what the Clan has to say. The Foreplay intro hints at intellectual hypocrisy, but this isn’t about hitting groupie skins. It’s all about The Blackwatch Movement; a race-based “spearhead” for the Afrocentric “weapon” known as black nationalism. When they’re not rapping, Professor X, The Overseer, is still uplifting his race by giving “vanglorious” speeches and calling people sissies.

my rating : 3 of 5

1992

audio review : The Gift Of Gab ( album ) … E-40

audio review : The Gift Of Gab ( album ) ... E-40

E-40 does have, as the idiom goes, the gift of gab. He had it better in his younger days. Go back and listen to how he changed his delivery and flow from song to song on The Element Of Surprise, Charlie Hustle and Loyalty/Betrayal albums. Even today the rapper usually has something interesting to say. It’s his lack of skill when it comes to overall song-making that’s been his aesthetic downfall.

This album, reportedly the first in yet another set; this one having to do with defining the title of each entry with a mock dictionary site or app cover picture; is about as weak as his last several. That includes the B-Legit and Too Short collaboration albums. These Days, featuring Yhung TO, is a minor highlight, but most of the beats and especially the lazy (ass) hooks are notably inferior to the verses.

my rating : 2 of 5

2018