Album Notes

Hip Hop is a genre that rotates, artists drop a few good albums and then they fall off and then some newer cats take over. To deny this would just be ignoring hip hop's history, of course there is a few exceptions but longevity and consistency just isn't qualities that you use often with the artists. Over the past few years it seems that there has been lots of "falling off" but there hasn't been much new talent to take over those spots. But hey rejoice hip hop fans, here we have a group who I had previously never heard of and they are actually good. Are they gonna have an impact or just fall into obscurity like so many others? Well only time will tell for that but in the meantime I'll definitely be telling people to check em out. Ok so who are these cats? Well it's actually a collaboration of 2 groups: Magnificent Ruffians and Elevated Soul. Elevated Ruffians, Magnificent Soul, get it?? Haha... The Ruffians handle the MC'ing side (and the scratching) while Elevated Soul are a trio of producers who handle the beats. But wait this is double album? *runs away*... I've heard enough of those groups who drop 75 minutes albums and half of it shouldn't have left the drawing board, I'm not gonna sit through that doubled... These were my first thoughts but after checking out a few of their joints on youtube I was impressed and decided to check out the full thing. Well damn it's 41 tracks deep and 147 minutes and there is only about 2-3 joints that I feel less, the rest is all dope! That is just impressive and something that rarely gets achieved in hip hop, you'd surely not expect something like from a group of unknowns. So what does it sound like? Well it's beats and rhymes, the essence of hip hop. The production is boom-bapish, a little innovative perhaps but doesn't really go into unexplored territories, the drums are good and the samples are effective which is really all that matters. On the mic these guys are on the "real hip hop" tip, being intelligent and dissing wack MC's. Their flows are simple and straight forward, nothing too complex but their rhymes go straight to the point. Complete package is more than the term for this LP, you have dope banging hip hop for hours without having to press that skip button. Perhaps I could have went for 4 stars if it was condensed to 1 CD with all the best stuff, but I wouldn't really want that since I'd be throwing away a full CD of dope material. Anyway this is one of the best hip hop releases of the year and really recommend people to check it out, I don't have much doubts that people will dig it. Or just sleep on it say that hip hop is dead cause Jay-Z's latest album isn't as good as Reasonable Doubt...

Review written by Diction @ RYM