The sounds of neo-new school hip-hop usually resonate with avant-garde sounding beats and an even more avant-garde emcee's rhyming over them. And for every five or so abstract "underground" LP's you'll find one that you can bob your head while cruising down the block; Soul Purpose's (Zavi, Koncepts and Mazzi) Breaking Records certainly qualifies.
Many of the tracks on Breaking Records contain conscious messages, or topics, which predominantly deal with the growing pains that accompanies the growth process of most twenty-something's; exemplified by "Minimum Wage" featuring the Juggaknots' Breezly Brewin, where the crew flips the "trying to make a dollar out of 15 cents" mentality, but keeps their hustle legal and "Ballad of Lost Friends" which touches on the dissolution of childhood friendships.
Though the mix between jazzy beats and neo-conscious rhyming is at times disconcerting, Zavi and Koncept blaze the title track, "Breaking Records" w/ Infamous MC and Kirby Dominant and the effort is further bolstered by guest shots from Pumpkinhead ("Take Cover!"), Breezly Brewin ("Minimum Wage"), Percee-P ("Lung-Collapsing Lyrics II") and another contribution from Juggaknots' Slim on "I Stay Busy".
In short, Breaking Records is an homage to all the heads that grew up on Large Professor, Tribe Called Quest, and De La Soul, and the ones that no matter how much hip-hop has changed, can still be found digging in the crates nearly a decade later. While the crew's over-ambitious nature (twenty-plus tracks) generates some unneeded filler, Soul Purpose's hearts and minds are in the right place.
That record never really took off, I think, because we were fronting so hard back then. We were all (in real life) gangsta as FUCK, but the label kept telling us, "positivity and thought provoking rap is what sells."
To be fair, Adam misspelled his own last name, too.
And I'll be generous and assume that the subject-verb disagreements fall on the shoulders of the co-reviewer.
But goddamn, that was hard to read.
I remember that Zavi thing actually, I knew Zvi's name well at that point. I think Zavi was either how the promotional letter had it spelled or maybe it had something to do with the editor.
faux_rillz
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I don't get it, why are there a bunch of bird's on the cover? Are doves gangsta?
Because they are the birdman and the birdman junior.
They don't call him Baby for nothin'
now, yes. Baby looks like a midget or something.
Turn up your sarcasm detector.
It definitely outshines that blaze green hoody.
I'm still waiting for your in depth musical analysis of anything
Didn't I review your album for hiphopsite years ago? I'm retired from the internet hip-hop review game.
besides, it ain't about the music.
Image is everything
post this review or you're soft.
Yeah, it looks like some forced perspective is going on.
To be fair, Adam misspelled his own last name, too.
And I'll be generous and assume that the subject-verb disagreements fall on the shoulders of the co-reviewer.
But goddamn, that was hard to read.
they're not related... or were you being sarcastic here too?
that shit dont translate too well in writing
I remember that Zavi thing actually, I knew Zvi's name well at that point. I think Zavi was either how the promotional letter had it spelled or maybe it had something to do with the editor.
My last name thing is really
weirdwierdI'm cringing while reading this.