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Gorillaz
(2001)
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Gorillaz
It's tempting to judge Gorillaz -- Damon Albarn, Tank Girl creator Jamie Hewlett, and Dan "The Automator" Nakamura's virtual band -- just by their brilliantly animated videos and write the project off as another triumph of style over substance. Admittedly, Hewlett's edgy-cute characterizations of 2-D, Gorillaz' pretty boy singer (who looks a cross ...
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Demon Days
(2005)
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Gorillaz
Damon Albarn went to great pains to explain that the first Gorillaz album was a collaboration between him, cartoonist Jamie Hewlett, and producer Dan the Automator, but any sort of pretense to having the virtual pop group seem like a genuine collaborative band was thrown out the window for the group's long-awaited 2005 sequel, Demon Days. Hewlett ...
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Hello Nasty
(1998)
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Beastie Boys
Hello Nasty, the Beastie Boys' fifth album, is a head-spinning listen loaded with analog synthesizers, old drum machines, call-and-response vocals, freestyle rhyming, futuristic sound effects, and virtuoso turntable scratching. The Beasties have long been notorious for their dense, multi-layered explosions, but Hello Nasty is their first record to ...
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To the 5 Boroughs
(2004)
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Beastie Boys
Six years is a long time, about one-and-a-half generations in pop music and a fairly large chunk out of anyone's life, two sentiments that come into play on the Beastie Boys' sixth album, 2004's To the 5 Boroughs. When the Beasties last delivered an album, it was in the summer of 1998 as the Clinton impeachment scandal was heating up, and just as ...
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St. Elsewhere
(2006)
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Gnarls Barkley
Who is Gnarls Barkley, and how did he ascend to the top of the British charts with a song that brings an eerie clarity to the cloud of mental illness? (Hint: It wasn't just the fact that Britain began factoring download data into its chart equations.) If St. Elsewhere sounds like one of the best rap-based pop productions since the second Gorillaz ...
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Reanimation
(2002)
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Linkin Park
The remix album -- the time-honored tradition of buying time between records. Often, these are inconsequential affairs (Limp Bizkit's New Old Songs leaps to mind, for some reason), but if a band is smart, they can use this time-buying ploy to their advantage, redefining their sound somewhat, or at least reaching out for that elusive street ...
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True Magic
(2006)
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Mos Def
Dumped on a post-Christmas/pre-New Year graveyard release date -- and, oddly, a Friday at that -- True Magic comes in a clear plastic box with no artwork, unless you count the sticker slapped onto the back. The FBI anti-piracy warning is the biggest logo on the package, and beside it, those who would like to see the credits are directed to www ...
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Black Star
(1998)
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Mos Def & Talib Kweli
While Puff Daddy and his followers continued to dictate the direction hip-hop would take into the millennium, Mos Def and Talib Kweli surfaced from the underground to pull the sounds in the opposite direction. Their 13 rhyme fests on this superior, self-titled debut as Black Star show that old-school rap still sounds surprisingly fresh in the sea ...
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Quality
(2002)
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Talib Kweli
While his erstwhile Black Star mate Mos Def concentrated on his acting career, Talib Kweli set about crafting a truly solo follow-up to his acclaimed debut, Reflection Eternal, this time with a variety of producers in place of partner DJ Hi-Tek. The excellent Quality only ups the ante, building on its predecessor's clear-minded focus with greater ...
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Eardrum
(2007)
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Talib Kweli
Although the most salient attribute of hip-hop is the words, the production behind it is equally important. It turns rhymes into song, into something you can feel, something that moves you. And while Talib Kweli certainly has the lyrical aspect down, often his albums -- and to be fair, those of other so-called "conscious MCs" -- tend to suffer ...
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Endtroducing...
(1996)
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DJ Shadow
As a suburban Californian kid, DJ Shadow tended to treat hip-hop as a musical innovation, not as an explicit social protest, which goes a long way toward explaining why his debut album Endtroducing... sounded like nothing else at the time of its release. Using hip-hop, not only its rhythms but its cut-and-paste techniques, as a foundation, Shadow ...
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None Shall Pass
(2007)
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Aesop Rock
Aesop Rock has been impressing the backpacker crowd with his intricate lyrics and dark, dirty, melodic production ever since he self-released Music for Earthworms back in 1997, helping to define the East Coast underground scene and validate the presence of white rappers. And even though he moved to San Francisco in 2005, prompting some outcry from ...
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Reflection Eternal
(2000)
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Talib Kweli & Hi Tek
After releasing a handful of essential 12"s on various Rawkus Records projects in the late '90s, Talib Kweli and DJ Hi-Tek were on the verge of becoming one of hip-hop's best-kept secrets. Yet their original incarnation as a duo expanded into a triumvirate with the inclusion of Mos Def and transformed their eventual manifestation into Black Star, ...
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Travel at Your Own Pace
(2007)
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Y Society
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Nogatco Rd.
(2006)
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Mr. Nogatco
Taking on yet another persona, whacked-out rapper Kool Keith becomes Mr. Nogatco for the '50s sci-fi- and U.F.O.-obsessed Nogatco Rd., a rare good album in a discography that bounces wildly between excellent and embarrassing. Nogatco Rd. is neither, and while it's nowhere near as vital as his work as Dr. Octagon, the Nogatco character (Octagon ...
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Music by Cavelight
(2004)
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Blockhead
During the 2000s, Ninja Tune upheld its reputation for quality breakbeats, and, far from becoming complacent, continued breaking intriguing and varied new records, from Fog's Ether Teeth to Cinematic Orchestra's Every Day. Though Blockhead may be a new name for fans of the label, underground rap fans already know him well for providing the ...
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Violent by Design [Bonus DVD]
(2004)
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Jedi Mind Tricks
Like all excellent underground hip-hop acts, Philadelphia's Jedi Mind Tricks want to sound like Kool Keith but actually make some sense. That they've now moved on from their debut album's UFO-aphilia into more sociopolitical ramblings shouldn't distract you: Violent By Design again shows a group that still knows its nobly skewed stuff, even when ...
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The Listening
(2003)
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Little Brother
In Little Brother's music, the North Carolina group makes a specific point to highlight the more refined aspects of mid-'90s hip-hop. Basing its 2002 sound upon the foundation previously established by the likes of Pete Rock, A Tribe Called Quest, Jay Dee, and Black Star, Little Brother makes somewhat of a political statement by applying such ...
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Bayani
(2007)
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Blue Scholars
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The Beautiful Struggle
(2004)
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Talib Kweli
Something's not right when a high compliment -- one laid down on wax, no less! -- from a giant like Jay-Z doesn't set off a major sales spike. Such is the case with Talib Kweli, a phenomenal MC who has only flirted with mainstream acceptance, despite being admired by a host of harder-edged platinum artists. Rather than try to ride out that slow if ...
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Desire
(2007)
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Pharoahe Monch
What if Kool G Rap's second album came out approximately eight years after his first? That would be a period long enough to leap from Road to the Riches to Roots of Evil, over Wanted: Dead or Alive, Live and Let Die, and 4, 5, 6. While it's an unfair analogy to make -- for many reasons -- when talking about the frustrating lag between Internal ...
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The Good Times
(2001)
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Afroman
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Bringing Down the House
(2003)
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Original Soundtrack
While the movie that inspired it may go for predictable laughs, the soundtrack to Bringing Down the House is surprisingly fresh, mixing contemporary urban and classic soul with tried and true and up-and-coming hip-hop artists. Maybe it's not such a surprise that the album mixes songs like Eve and Jadakiss' party-starting "Let Go (Hit the Dance ...
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Ventilation: Da LP
(2000)
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Phife Dawg
After A Tribe Called Quest culminated a decade of influence with The Love Movement, the group's loyalists immediately shifted gears, turning their attention to frontman Q-Tip's solo debut, Amplified, and delegating the group's oft-neglected member, Phife Dawg, back into a role he has become very accustomed to: second fiddle. Eager to step out of Q ...
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Expansion Team
(2001)
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Dilated Peoples
A mostly successful refinement of their debut, Expansion Team finds Dilated Peoples attempting to broaden their lyrical outlook somewhat, while taking advantage of a bigger budget to experiment with a varied cast of producers. Thanks to the latter, Expansion Team is arguably an even better-sounding album than its accomplished predecessor, boasting ...
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