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| Gift Of Gab is simple and plain (while he's not simple and plain) one of the best emcees currently rapping. He makes the area between poetry, excellent delivery and between real life tales, topics for everyone and between fun blend into a cocktail that gets you drunk, never silly
and that never gives you a headache. The signature tune appears with "Just Because". Here Gift sums up his reasons to rhyme when he goes "not because I want a gold or a platinum plaque / not because a record label may push my date
back / not even because this is how I'm earning my paychecks / but just because this shit feels good". Stereotypical? Sure. Naw, maybe. But there's as much truth in the way he says this, as in the verses he follows this chorus. |
| I mean, there's something safe and sound in topics like "Flashback", where Gab is time warping what was to a welcome now. These rhetorics are like Jazz Standards: every self respecting artists needs to do 'em at one point in time, but has to make sure to really put
his fingerprint on the way he does 'em. Whenever Gab opens his mouth it's going to be interesting. Thus he does the demanded, here and there, and there is "Real MCs", a lyrical flip flop with Vursatyl of the Lifesavas (later again repeated solo on "Evolution"). Who's
also on "Way Of The Light" on a more philosophical and thinking page. |
| Much else however on the record, is strongly carried by the mood pushed by the beats, and it's giving us the 'good to follow' rhyming of an intelligent human being, who is thinking thoughts that are not too abstract for the ones too busy or distracted to ponder the same. He's the
uncle that takes the time to share, as he does on "In A Minute Doe". |
| The overall underlying message has a certain restlessness (but not impatience) written between the lines. What's also reflected by the way the album starts with "The Ride Of Your Life", to then end in "Ride On".
It's a call to the rocketships, a demand to move on. But Gab is not driven out by where he is, but by where he isn't. While you also get the impression that Gab is not happy with where they are, because the lyrical bragging of 'just rhyming good' is done surprisingly often, so again on "The
Writz" or "Rat Race". |
| While you will be stressed to even care about the beats, considering all the incredibly lyricism, there's of course still beats on here. And they vary from the musically hopeful "The Ride Of Your Life", to the somewhat
commercial bouncy "Rat Race". They continue with the magical pair of "Stardust" and "Flashback", pass the Sly sampling "Up", the what we want (the love tune on the album "To
Know You") and what we don't want ("Real MCs"), to find somewhat typical appearances in "The Writz", "Just Because" and "Ride On". And smoother versions of that on "In
A Minute Doe" and "Evolution". In general, the record is very musical, more or less thoroughly good, offering the expected, as well as updated versions of that. |
| That's why this record is simple and plain very good, as it's anything but simple and plain. Gift Of Gab is someone you wouldn't mind spend a couple of decades in a 'fourth dimensional rocketship' with, because he would be one entertaining travel companion. |
| review: tadah |
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