So his 2011 energy Gutter Rainbows was a grossly mediocre effort; I do not know who was simply the culprit, and I don’t care. It may have been a Lupe/L.A.S.E.R.S.-like label lamentation, or it might’ve been Talib’s own deterioration in Kwelity; however with the launch of his new album Prisoner of Aware, there’s fulfillment in focusing simply how much it does not subject because at least the latter has often been removed or amended as a ponderous possibility.
First and foremost, this really is probably one of the most soulful Fashionable Get collections that’s been seen in a multitude of minutes, according to the beat tock of Trendy Hop; it’s the sort of record where as a writer you don’t desire to simple out any tunes because you want to comment on the fruitful production (courtesy of S1, Oh Number, RZA and J. Cole to call a few) that’s the majority of the batch, but simultaneously you need your audience to be as pleasantly surprised as you had been once you gone engrossed nearly a bare slate.
Individual Microphone (produced by Oh No) is a banger of an intro that’s the hunger that Talib Kweli has been sorely lacking over the past few years, unloading multisyllabic poems reminiscent of Large Pun and older Eminem. The strings and keyboard complement each other whilst the backdrop to Talib’s vitality, and luckily don’t end here, violins returning for Push Through and Hamster Wheel while keyboard returns on Before He Walked and team up with synthesizers to offer Fine Flowers a delicate g-funk noise which visits from left field. But the brass… the brass is what actually sticks out, even though their existence is of equivalent stability to pianos and violins.
High Living and Bomb Vessels see the very best of the steel, and both for their own factors aside from being superbly followed by drums. Where High Life finds their roots in the arena of gospel/rock’n’roll/swing rhythms, Rocket Vessels uses its drums to meat up the already-prevalent Wu-stamp that RZA has imposed in its production… and have I stated that Busta Songs reverts to his precious funny side once more?
Ultimately, Favela Love is curiously and gently the wealthiest in noise; a little low-key jazzy audio samba number featuring Brazil’s Seu Jorge, starting out with soft stop drums and synthesizers before its movement which easily fuses Latin percussion, violin, guitar and maracas. Without doubt one for those older, more experienced people who choose the sonic company of Brazilian favelas.
Prisoner of Conscious also loves visitor locations from an astonishing number of names like Kendrick Lamar, Melanie Fiona, Floetry’s Marsha Ambrosius, Abby Jobson and Trendy Hop’s hottest go-to R&W crooner Miguel. While it’s good to know the stack of intergenerational crème de la crème between Kweli and Kendrick on Force Through (seriously, try to choose that you simply prefer), you’re not specially treated by the lacklustre, reasonably predictable verses from Curren$y and Nelly on Drive Through and Before He Went, respectively; one miracles if these were merely label-requested improvements since neither of these two are reduce from the exact same cloth or made in to the exact same suit as Kweli.
That is not to say they damage the tracks they are on, it’s only that nobody might skip them should they weren’t on them; if we’re to turn an adverse right into a positive it’s that people may melody out for his or her sentiments and bethink past collaborations with Mos Def, Frequent, Hi-Tek and Madlib… buuuuut if you’re a perpetual pessimist the bad remains therefore, albeit in a different light.
Also, Upper Echelon is obnoxiously driven by claps, hats and whiney synthesizers, and a more materialistic Talib (can’t even inform if he is being strange or not) rendering it sub-par to any such thing on the recording lyrically and musically. That out-of-character trait ultimately becomes an out-of-place trait for the record holistically, detracting from what has up to this point been driven by intelligence, not ignorance.