Since there are two legends (Wise Intelligent and Kool G Rap) releasing albums this week, each with vastly different moral character, this start to June 2017 presents a very good seminar on the dignity-divisions that still exist in the rap music game today. If the veterans aren’t even on the same page as far as scruples and decency are concerned, how can the majority of new artists coming up now be expected to start a movement for more substance, principles and values in the lyrics? A discussion is in order but that’s far from all it will take for a change. Caught in between the two, rising Brooklyn emcee Latasha Alcindor is the middle of the debate with material that favors the artistic and progressive side of the aisle in her latest project. Overall it’s been a solid week.
Game of Death by Gensu Dean & Wise Intelligent (Mello Music Group)
If February’s BlueKluxKlan wasn’t enough of PRT’s Wise Intelligent for you then you’re in luck because he and alternative producer Gensu Dean just dropped a joint album, Game of Death, on respected label Mello Music Group to boot. This is no doubt the main attraction this June 2nd, with Wise upholding black culture and showing great concern for the health and integrity of hip-hop music on it, as he exposes the escalating phenomenon of wack, bad-influence rappers pushed by the mainstream system. And he does it to Dean’s professionally crafted joints of psych rock, folk, soul and electronica plus enhancing backup sound bites.
Not only an attack on the shady industry model, G.O.D. has a love component by Wise that buffers the criticism and rebuke. Despite lesser rappers’ cowardice, Wise has love for all rappers, even the sucker rappers (can’t really call them sucker MC’s because a lot of them aren’t technically emcees to begin with), since they are the offshoot and result of foundation-laying by him and other Golden Age greats. Also “Ooh Wee (Shakiyla Pt.4)” has Wise depicting sex not lewdly or raunchily but as intimate love-making with his spirit-mate, as involved and meaningful, not simply as f*cking. In a nutshell, GOD succeeds because of neat quick spitting on useful important topics over artistic musical beats. (4 out of 5 stars)
Teen Nite at Empire by Latasha Alcindor (self-released)
Brooklyn artist and rapper Latasha Alcindor, found in workshop, concert, and music by Sammus, Radamiz and others, issues her retail debut during an upswing in her career and at a time when the feminine spark is still very much needed in hip-hop. Teen Night at Empire has all the verve, spunk, strength, spirit, flyness, vocal fashion and yes even fight (the good kind) that Alcindor has developed a reputation for over the last few years in her songs. This new output of emotions and charging resolve is distinct for ‘90s throwback loops atop most prominently then crystal clear, ambient chords later in, no doubt from the greatest that modern studio mastering and expert craftsmanship have to offer. Latasha speaks on typical emcee fare – braggadocio, memories, etc. – but what she has to say in this set are things not extremely dire to talk about, mainly common notes and thoughts from her own life important to her above all else. Teen Nite is still a creative piece though, original LA yet influenced by the greats with some nice creativity on the production end. (3 out of 5 stars)
Return of the Don by Kool G Rap (Clockwork Music/Full Mettle)
There’s not much more to say about Queens Golden-Ager Kool G Rap at this point, especially with a new LP (his fifth solo one, eighth overall) of banal mafioso rap. The gangster emcee from the legendary Juice Crew with Big Daddy Kane, Biz Markie, Roxanne Shanté, Masta Ace and Craig G (and the rest) is hiding his desire for big money numbers, fame and celebrity in the Return of the Don album with talk about his music not being gangster rap but “reality” rap (*denial*) and one of his guests saying he’ll leave the teaching to KRS-One, plus he’s literally hiding behind a sizable number of big, equally gangster guest-rappers on it. It’s simply nothing more than violent brutal street rap that’s sometimes women-hating and women-using and never deeply intelligent or intellectual outside of the rhyming and spitting craft. More than some skillfully conceived wordplay recited expertly is the only attribute worth studying here – even producer MoSS’s nothing-new boombap compositions are hardly exciting – so the music and the lowdown dirty pastimes and preoccupations do a lot of damage to the dangerously distinguished don on Return. (1 out of 5 stars)
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