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//_Record reviews
Like Buck 65 or Sixtoo, McEnroe is one of the protagonists of the canadian independent hip hop scene. “Five Years in Factory” is the follow-up of the 2003 release “Disenfranchised”. Rusty Samples create atmospheric beats – the overall sound remains raw. Portions of strings, flutes and other acoustic instruments are pieced together in a organic way and form a always expressive soundtrack, far away from pop styles. The noticeable melancholic music is combined with serious lyrics and many ironic up to sarcastic side cuts about music industry or corporations behaviour – it seems to be a normal part of McEnroe’s music to come up with political issues. Also his personal development as a music listener is touched – some stations are pop, punk, heavy metal or hip hop for example. Besides the varied “Wandering Eye”, lovely instrumental-tracks like “One More Tomorrow” or “Billy’s Vision” are musical highlights of this work. This one is definitely made for attentive listening.
Antipop Consortium stands for high level lyrics and musical designs, which tend to bride gaps between hip hop and electronic, synthetic sounds. On their last record before the split, Antipop Consortium meets the free-jazz musicians fronted by pianist Matthew Shipp. An Openness for experiments and unconventional formats unite the artists of both groups. On the ten tracks, jazz improvisation is mixed with tricky raps and synthesizer-escapades. Unfortunately, the songs contain only a few organic moments - the highlights of this album are well-done solo-parts. That's why the results are far away from the creative potential of this collaboration. Overall rating: An unorthodox, interesting listening experience without special taste.
Dizzee Rascal seems to be the shooting star of Grime, a new sub-genre of the UK-Hip Hop scene. "Showtime" is the second longplayer of the young rapper from london. The sound is based on cheap, hypnotic beats which contain lonely synthesizer samples, bass, clicking sounds and some nice melodic elements like on "Get By" or "Dream". And Dizzie Rascal comes up with hunted raps about street life, Hostility within the scene or unemployment. These look clearly more authentic than the wide-spread gangster images. The honest lyrics are the most positive aspect of this album. Against the hype about "grime" this one doesn't really present fresh ideas or new musical innovation - but it's on you to decide if you like what you hear.
On this album, Stacy Epps and Lil Sci (part of the underground crew Science Of Life) come up with a combination of soul and raw hip hop - and it's a pretty good try! Vocals with a soul feeling and atmospheric vibes a la Tribe Called Quest meet dope beats and raps. The prelude bomb "introspect" is a excellent invitation to dance. Most of the following tracks share this groovy attitude, but there's no lack of raw hip hop. A few live played instruments were mixed up with loops and samples. Besides Science Of Life member ID 4 Windz rather unknown producers like Floyd The Locsmif, Ta'Raach and Walt B have provided the instrumentals. Overall Rating: Groovy hip hop without surprises.
Instead oh repeating well-known sounds, this album is a serious
try to develop hip hop beyond stereotypes. The philosophy on the back
of the cover comes to the point clearly: "Don't allow yourself the
liberty of nostalgia. Romance is slavery." The Antipop's drop tons
of intelligent lyrics - and not only the rhyme technique is outstanding.
Even without music, their creative use of rhymes and complex wordplay
is a great listening pleasure (sadly, there's no song booklet). The rhymes
are combined with dirty, minimalistic beats. Earl Blaize doesn't fear
to combine pieces of synthesizer-sounds with samples and breaks out of
a drummachine. At all the compositions seem to be very organic - sometimes
humming, relaxed, melancholic or dark. This creation is far beyond the
norms of hip hop's mini industry. Therefore you should be ready to question
your own listening habits. Ok, open your ears …
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Second stroke of the sampling-songwriter
After his debut “Dead Ringer”, the “sampling-songwriter” delivers his second album. Rjd2’s sound could be described as mix of realisticly performed drumms, tons of samples and vocal-parts, which origins nobody knows. All that is combined with varied songstructures, far away from the monotonous loops you find on most hip hop records. In comparison with the predecessor, “Since We last Spoke” has noticeable moved beyond the former relation to hip hop and expanded the sound-range. The usual ingredients like jazz, blues and soul are mixed up with rocking guitar- and atmospheric synthesizer-samples. Therby Rjd2 doesn’t only use different styles of music – clearer as before, he produces massive soul-, pop- and even rocksongs – between the wavy “Iced Lightning” and the floating rock-ballad “Through The Walls” there isn’t much, he couldn’t create with his sampler. After all, this is a wonderfull contribution to the culture of sampling. Unfortunately this masterpiece ends after less than fifty minutes. 
"Welcome to the afterfuture" is not a studio album,
it's a collection of songs recorded between 1991 - 99. A nice Circumstance,
which involves changes and differences. Except a collaboration with Company
Flow on "Bladerunners", Mike Ladd, a well-known name in the
poetry scene of New York, is acting solo. Therby he doesn't accept the
limitations of music genres or even hip hop. He mixes spoken word, raps
and soul. This openness continues when it comes to music: Synthies, electronic
elements and samples melt to ingenius, but not clumsy compositions, which
share a futuristic taste. Variety is a logical consequence if you listen
to one of the thirteen tracks in total. Some of them tend to be sound
collages, for example "To The Moons Contractor". A nice salutation
at the afterfuture …
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