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| tracklisting |
| 1. Eighty Eight |
| 2. Breathe Slow feat. Jax and Flux |
| 3. Planes And Trains feat. Pigeon John, Blueprint |
| 4. Afterlife |
| 5. Black Box Artists (Boom Bap) |
| 6. Inside Out |
| 7. Enterchange |
| 8. Let Me |
| 9. Alpha Male |
| 10. PSA #428 |
| 11. Freeze Framework |
| 12. Sideline Speech feat. Bigg Jus |
| 13. Next Door feat. Pam Howe |
| 14. Piecemeal |
| 15. Stepson |
| 16. Sunstep |
| 17. Lump Sum |
| 18. The Calm Before |
| 19. He |
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| When Dust produces the beat, then Manchild sings the Blues. That's the glance into the future of now, i.e. "Backbreakanomics" that the "Blue Collar Sessions" EP gave us. We first got to hear the Blues, a certain howling gritty instrumentation, that is very prominent
on this album now, because Dust has found his sound. |
| Therefore take "Planes And Trains" as a signature tune. The guitar, while not necessarily sampled from a Blues record, provokes the same core vibe. And Manchild steps up to say "rap is my two cents, backed by the movement
/ sacrificed my words to give you Pigeon John and Blueprint / pleased just to thank you, hang with a strange few / five to the Deepspace, stay the same just to change you". With him communicating a lot of information in these few lines: yes, Pigeon John and Weightless' Blueprint are on this track
(another well known guest is Bigg Jus on "Sideline Speech"), Mars ILL are part of the Deepspace5 collective, and Manchild stays the same, conscious, intelligent, poetic, just to change you, us. A sentiment again picked up on "Afterlife",
where Manchild confesses that "a nation of manchildren is now under construction". The beat here is the rightful heir to the incredible "Live From Atlantis" from the previously mentioned EP, as Dust not only gets the vibe right, but his drum and the production behind the front is
elaborate and filled. |
| What allows Manchild to give us messages in a beautiful way, be it on staying patient ("Breathe Slow"), an emcee's manifest ("Black Box Artists (Boom Bap)", which features a thick brass sound), a critique of the game ("Enterchange"),
a critique of people that get Manchild angry, may they be biters or Sunday Christians ("Piecemeal"), poetic relief ("Sunstep"), as well as a discussion on the four elements of hip hop, which, to be quite frankly, a more or less accidental combination of four different
art forms ("PSA #428"). This is a very interesting approach, as Manchild first claims to not represent all four, how he just rhymes and Dust just DJs. He continues to explain how loose the connection between him, b-boying and writing is. What however reminds us of the truth that you
write best about what you know. Therefor Manchild acknowledges and respects the other elements much more by him dismissing the connection, than those that ignore it. Be it the b-boys that "don't even listen to any rap after 1989", the writers that "don't really like my music", or
the many artists that pretend like there's nothing else to hip hop but their car and chain. |
| And none of these tales and contents are simple, by any means. But the lyrics of "Inside Out" are deep amongst deep words. Here we find ourselves with a man wrongly imprisoned. And he "blames the system that built
jails instead of schools / blames religion as a set of useless rules / blames his father that he never even knew / looks in the mirror; yeah, he blames him too". As sad the beat is, the track's spirit actually turns positive: "because the slightest touch from the heavens can heavily change
the tides / or tip the scales to either side of the problems in our lives". The track concludes in our hero's release and he's "released into a city that becomes his mission field". |
| Just as haunting is "Alpha Male", which Manchild tells us is the most important song on the album. Here he speaks of an abusive husband, who finds all the right excuses for his wrong behaviors: "I didn't mean to break your face, I just wanted to break your spirit
/ and your arm the night before, I thought we agreed that was an accident / now the neighbors called the cops on some old assault and battering / and I'm a man of my word and all my words got four letters". On the second verse Manchild takes this into perspective, discussing: "know the facts
that with power, responsibility's attached". He's changing from a well wishing friend to priest when he says "if your father was a deadbeat or absent, you can break the cycle / take the Bible and tradition and follow the map accordingly". And while the topic of God appears on many of
these tracks, like quite prominently on "The Calm Before", it is always mentioned in a 'this is how I found peace' kind of way. What is appreciated, as it's much less missionary, it's not forcing it down our throats. But it's mainly offering
an option. |
| So there's as much Blues in the music (thoroughly on "Freeze Framework", "Lump Sum", and "Next Door"), as in the tales, words, meanings and
messages that Manchild recites. But beyond the Blues, seriousness, vibes and everything and all, beyond all of that, there's a great album. |
| review: tadah |
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