Get To Know H.E.R.

As long as I’m putting the word out that Sweet Lord is going to be a free download, I thought I might as well give people another reason to take time out of their busy schedule to listen to it when it drops. That reason, boys and girls, is this album right here. It’s not the first album by 9th Wonder or Murs, but it is the first of their collaborative efforts. 9th Wonder had done work with his ex-group Little Brother prior to this, and Murs has been releasing solo albums for a good minute before this (and group efforts as a part of both Living Legends and Felt). They’d built up quite a bit of hype in the underground, so you can imagine the excitement that was generated by bloggers everywhere when these two announced that they would release an album together. Did the album live up to it’s hype? Yes and no. But you’ll see what I mean.

The album begins with an Intro that seems like your average self hype rap intro at first. Then, the beat changes completely to become Robot Rock meets Murs (any Daft Punk fans in the house?) and our emcee drops a quick verse to give us, the listeners, one of the better post 2000 rap intros ever. Then they drop the ball completely on the second track with the ridiculously annoying Bad Man. The beat by itself would’ve been annoying enough, but the voice loop repeating “bad man” seals the deal. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: even if the lyrics are sick, a song with a horrible beat is a bad song. Thankfully for all parties involved, 3:16 is a great track that picks the ball right back up. The Pain is a track that really embodies the spirit of its title. Having one of those days in which nothing seems to go right? Just get rejected by that female coworker again? Listen to The Pain. Failed another exam? Listen to The Pain. Just in the mood to feel really emo? Listen to The Pain. Not that it’ll solve any of those problems, but good music always calms the soul. Not that this track is meant only for your emo days either. Just get a raise? Listen to The Pain. About to go for a quick run around the block? Listen to The Pain. Feel like kicking your puppy? You get the idea.

The next track, Trevor an’ Them, is pretty damn good but way too freaking short. You just start getting into the whole groove of the track when it cuts you off and leaves you high and dry. Freak These Tales provides an refreshing sound on a subject matter that hip hop has beaten 22/23rd to death already. It actually sounds a lot like an adult version of Will Smith’s “”Girls Ain’t Nothing But Trouble,” if that helps you at all. Afterwards, H-U-S-T-L-E comes on and I decide to completely forgive the duo for including Bad Man on this album. There’s actually a music video to the remix featuring John Cena, which is just ridiculous and funny as hell. I’ll post it at the bottom and you’ll see what I mean. The following song, Walk Like A Man, kicks ASS. Seriously, everything is just right on this track. Murs exercises his storytelling abilities in the telling of the shooting of a friend and 9th provides three separate beats that provides the perfect backdrop for each section. On And This Is For, Murs speaks his mind on a couple of things and calls out his fans for not buying his albums. I don’t agree with a lot of what’s said on it, but it’s still an enjoyable track. The album then ends with a bang with Animal. The beat sounds like something one can just chill to and Phonte’s guest appearance is more than appreciated.

The Good: Intro, 3:16, The Pain, Freak These Tales, H-U-S-T-L-E, Walk Like A Man, And This Is For, Animal

The Solid: Trevor an’ Them

The Bad: Bad Man

Final Score: 9.0

As far as 9th Wonder goes, this album was incredible. Other than Bad Man, every track was laced with an amazing beat, and it’s clear that 9th had come a long way since The Listening. However, I also expected it to be Murs’ best effort thus far and while it’s damn close, I still prefer Murs Rules The World to this on an average day. But that’s not a big complaint at all and I do think that this album oozes excellence. This album may seem a bit different from most mainstream albums that are coming out these days. For one, there are almost no guest spots at all. Two, the whole thing is only 10 tracks long. Still, I’ll rather have a condensed, mindblowing musical experience to an oversturated, 8 tracks too long, shit album any day. Besides, 10 tracks, one of them an intro, and one guest rapper spot? Sounds a lot like a classic album by the name of Illmatic to me.

And now as promised, the H-U-S-T-L-E video. enjoy

While I’m a little more than hesitant to really label Kanye a legend, there’s no ignoring the huge impact he’s had on modern day hip hop. Everybody should know Kanye’s story by now and if you don’t, chances are you’ve probably been living underneath a rock for the past 8 years. The first time I took interest in Kanye was when I saw that he produced nearly all of my favorite tracks from Jay-Z’s Blueprint. About a year later, after the infamous car accident, I read an article in XXL saying that he was set to release a solo album sometime in the near future. The album met a couple of delays and by the time it came out, I’d pretty much forgotten about Mr. West. A month later, I was walking through Best Buy when I saw a copy of the album on the shelves and decided to buy it off the strength of his past production work. I immediately put it into my CD player (yes..I still use one of those) and slowly but surely was blown away. Compared to the over-saturation of 50 Cent that was 2003 (although Get Rich Or Die Trying was a pretty good album), this was a totally different monster. I then proceeded to play the shit out of this CD for the rest of the year. Let’s take a look at how this album, which most of you probably have heard at least once by now, plays out.

The album starts out with an Intro that nobody needs to hear more than once and goes right on to the next song, We Don’t Care. With it’s infectious, happy go lucky beat and sing a long chorus, it’s decent enough as the first track. I take it more as a joke track than anything else, especially since some of the lyrics on it are down right hilarious. After a short, forgettable interlude in the form of Graduation Day, comes the popular All Falls Down. Story goes that Kanye couldn’t get the Lauryn Hill vocal sample cleared and had Syleena Johnson redo the vocals. I’ve heard the original with the original sample and honestly, the album version sounds a lot better.

After yet another interlude (although I’ll Fly Away is better than most skits I’ve heard on rap albums) is Spaceship, one of the best songs off the whole album. I’ve always felt that Kanye made a mistake in releasing Consequence’s solo before GLC’s, since what I’ve heard from him so far outdoes everything I’ve heard from Consequence and in fact he outshines both Kanye and Conse on this track. The next three tracks are sequenced in a way that for some reason has always seemed brilliant to me. The first song in this three song centerpiece is a song that damn near everyone knows by now, Jesus Walks. Regardless of what you feel about the subject material, it’s a great song (and why should you complain? if you can sit through hours of Wu Tang and Brand Nubian 5% preaching, you can sit through 3 minutes of this). Next comes Never Let Me Down, which features Jay-Z and is another great track. Although Jay and Kanye spit bars about two totally different subjects the song somehow works, and Jay’s last, not included in the original version, verse is especially nice.

The next song on the album and the final in my trio is the ridiculously good Get ‘Em High. Ever since the first time I went through this album, this song has always stuck out in my mind as the best song on the whole damn album. Kanye, Talib and Common are all on point and the beat just rocks. Of course, the damn sequencers had to ruin it all by following this track with the down right stupid Workout Plan skit and its just as stupid, related song The New Workout Plan. At least the album makes up for this with the next song, Slow Jamz, which was a song that was originally on Twista’s Kamikaze. It’s a slightly different version with a couple of R&B breaks and for the most part I find that I prefer this to the Kamikaze version.

Breathe In Breathe Out is a forgettable song and only features Ludacris on its hook. After another skit (which is actually pretty funny the first couple of times around) is School Spirit. If you’re wondering why the curses are censored on this, it’s because Aretha Franklin wouldn’t let Kanye sample the song unless it was rendered clean. The censoring may distract you a little bit, but overall it’s a short, fun song. The next actual song on the album is Two Words, a song that has quite possibly THE best production on this album. As such, I like it, even if Mos’ guest verse is a bit disappointing. Following Two Words, is another song that everyone should know, Through The Wire, the song that shows that Kanye is one diligent, hardworking bastard. I’m gonna assume that you, the readers, know the story behind this song by now, and as such, I’m gonna move right on ahead to Family Business. It’s a real feel good song, and I’ve always enjoyed it a lot. I’m not usually the biggest fan of sung R&B hooks, but for this song I’m willing to make an exception. The next “song” is Last Call, and it features a puzzling intro by Jay-Z, is way too long, and is merely ok as far as outros go.

The Good: All Falls Down, I’ll Fly Away, Spaceship, Jesus Walks, Never Let Me Down, Get ‘Em High, Slow Jamz, School Spirit, Two Words, Through The Wire, Family Business

The Solid: We Don’t Care, Breathe In Breathe Out, Every Skit Other Than “I’ll Fly Away” and “Workout Plan”

The Bad: Workout Plan, The New Workout Plan

Final Score: 9.0

Four years after its release, Kanye’s debut album is no classic, but still holds up pretty well. There are really no big missteps other than Workout Plan and as far as I’m concerned, the good tracks more than makes up for the slack. I could’ve done with fewer skits, but then again, I ended up not liking the one Kanye album that didn’t have any skits at all (Graduation), so who knows? If you don’t have it already, I would suggest you pick it up whenever you can, especially since you can probably get it for cheap used off Amazon.