Gift Of Gab – Escape 2 Mars
Gift Of Gab – Escape 2 Mars CD (Cornerstone R.A.S.)
We don’t cover a lot of hip-hop here at Mass Movement, but I’m sure that I’m not the only member of our crew with an appreciation for the genre. Gift Of Gab is a bad-ass MC best known as one-half of the underground duo Blackalicious, and this solo album—like the band’s albums—is light-years removed from the weak, phony hip-hop that dominates the airwaves and dance clubs of the world. Gift Of Gab operates in a gray area between full-on backpack hip-hop (El-P, Cage, Aesop Rock) and straight-up underground rap (Del Tha Funkee Homosapien, De La Soul, Jurassic 5): full of psychedelic funk, organic beats, and intelligent rhymes delivered in a loose, esoteric manner designed to draw in newcomers rather than force out those who may be coming from a different world. Musically, ‘Escape 2 Mars’ is essentially an electronica record—and thankfully avoids the overbearing and wholly unnecessary concept of trying to break things with bass drops—with completely original music crafted by DNAEBEATS and Hednodic in lieu of the disgustingly popular concept of simply stealing other artists’ hit songs, which is all that Top 40 rappers seem able to do. Guests on the record include Honeycut vocalist Bart Davenport and underground hip-hop hero Lateef The Truthspeaker. If there were more hip-hop records like this, I’d listen to a lot more hip-hop records. Vinyl junkies take note: the vinyl release features tons of extras, including an exclusive song unavailable digitally. The Impaler
