2 posts tagged “blackalicious”
Listening to Yours Truly, Angry Mob, the second effort by Kaiser Chiefs, I'm yet again struck by my enjoyment for an album that I had previously written off. When I purchased ...Angry Mob back in the early part of 2007, I was underwhelmed at best, but hearing it again, having cleansed all memory of it in the ensuing months, it's a solid, mature album, in some ways much better than their debut. Where Employment has more catchy, cheeky hits, ...Angry Mob, possibly anticipating in that title the inevitable backlash, cuts the sass in favor of stronger songwriting. And while I lament the absence of some of the catchier and edgier aspects of the debut, the newer album will likely have more staying power, now that I've given it a fair shake.
As with Blackalicious's The Craft, I'm finding that I now disagree wholeheartedly with my first impressions of an album. Just a few weeks ago I decided to give the latest 31 Knots opus, The Days and Nights of Everything Anywhere and was pleasantly surprised to find that I actually like it. While it's still nowhere near the level of perfection of their previous record, Talk Like Blood, it has plenty to offer that for whatever reason fell on deaf ears with my initial listens. I must be unconsciously building expectations for new albums based on my previous experiences with the bands, falling into the all-too-common trap of not approaching each album as its own work, on its own terms. Musicians, for the most part, grow and change, their music along with them, AC/DC being the exception that proves the rule. While that doesn't mean I should give a pass to any musician that tries something different (DJ Shadow - Jesus H., man, seriously), I do need to take a moment and keep my knee from jerking so quickly when I hear something new from an established artist. So far, giving myself some months of palette cleansing and revisiting the music has worked out fairly well for me, a lesson I should keep in mind in the future.
In 2002, Blackalicious dropped what I can say without exaggeration is one of the most important hip-hop releases in my personal history. While critically lauded, Blazing Arrow, an overlong and somewhat hit-and-miss mishmash of organic hip-hop and supremely chilled funk soul, wasn't necessarily a game-changing album. Its moments of brilliance shine like no other, though, and for me the album as a whole, flaws and all, really flipped a switch in me. Before, my relationship with hip-hop was virtually nonexistant, being limited to a Wu-Tang album here or some old LL there. With Blazing Arrow, however, my mind was officially blown and I started my hip-hop education in earnest. It will always hold a special place in my heart.
Impatient for the follow-up, the crew kept my spirits high with a string of solid releases. Gab's solo joint, 4th Dimensional Rocketships Going Up, was a soulful, low-key head nodder. Proteges Lifesavas dropped Spirit in Stone, an album Urb called Blackalicious 2.0, an apt description before the group came into their own on their second album. The topper, though, was Chief Xcel's project with Lateef, Maroons, whose Ambush EP (well, more like a short lp - I think the length is pefect) delivered a pitch perfect follow up to Blazing Arrow, lean and funky, like a tighter, more energetic Blazing Arrow. Whereas Blackalicious often split up their more hyped tracks with laid back chill out numbers, Ambush starts strong and doesn't let up. After all of these righteous jams, I couldn't wait for the proper follow-up, and on September 27th, 2005, Blackalicious finally dropped The Craft, their third proper album.
I left work on my lunch break and drove to the closest store that I knew would have the album, breaking my habit of shopping at locally-owned Ear X-tacy in my impatience to hear the record, copping it at the local Best Buy. I immediately slid the CD in to my car stereo, cranked the volume and started back toward work, taking the long way around to give me a little more time with the music. I was dismayed. Something just wasn't clicking. I couldn't figure out what it was, but nothing grabbed me like the other albums had. I listened to it through twice more at work, the luxury of music being one of the few benefits to the job, and still I couldn't connect. I don't know what I was expecting, but this wasn't it. Figuring I was bound to be disappointed at some point, I didn't think much on it, and the CD ended up seeing few rotations, getting buried in the flood of new music my addiction brought in every month. I forgot about it, until recently.
Having virtually forgotten what it sounded like, I decided to give the album another listen. Thoroughly enjoying World of Vibration, I started to think that maybe I had just gotten it wrong. The song is a nice way to start the record, enjoyable, but not phenomenal, and then at the two-and-a-half minute mark it suddenly dissolves, mutating from an upbeat slice of hip-hop fun into a smoldering funk dirge that could have been a Maggot Brain outtake. Where did this come from? I don't remember this. I definitely got it wrong. From the World of Vibrations coda, the group segues into a series of hits, solid slabs of energetic songs that, taken together, form a decent hip-hop album, but more importantly form an excellent funk record. Don't get me wrong: in form this is a hip-hop album, through and through, but in character it's a funk record, and it works so well in that context that it's the only way I can really think about it now. I'm glad I decided to give this one another shot. While it will never match Arrow's importance to me, it stands on its own, a work possibly best judged not in within the context of the Blackalicious catalogue, but as a singular achievment.
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PS. The song that turned me on to this group in the first place, and one of my top songs of all time:
