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Album Review
by Tiberius Spocq
28-11-2001
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Da La Soul |
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Various: 'Trio of rap CDs' (Diverse)
Past and present are accounted for but hardly any trace of future
De La Soul
’Art Official Intelligence: Bionix’
(Tommy Boy)
The second in the ’Art Official Intelligence’ trilogy, ’Bionix’ is a purist sort of a record one’s learnt to expect from this crew, ever since their debut ‘3 Feet High And Rising’. De La Soul-ists have an incredible knack for making records that are really basic in its ingredients: beats and rhymes. They continually do it well but their greatest triumph has been persuading people to like hip-hop although they were convinced they didn’t. DLS have always trailed behind the heavyweights of the genre but have kept the quality on an even keel. Unfortunately, it has felt a bit too polite at times…
7/10
Ice Cube
‘Greatest Hits’
(Virgin)
Veteran rapper Ice Cube’s ‘Greatest Hits’ is 17-track anthology of the glorious past and newly fashioned sounds. Mr Cube (Butch to his mum, okay – O’Shea Jackson) has teamed up with sought-after producers, The Neptunes, “We went and got Ice Cube?” is how they put it down. It also includes a new track that Cube cut with Rockwilder, ‘$100 Bill Y’All’ which he describes as a “hip-hop jam, with catchy hooks and stuff,” as well as a slew of Ice Cube favourites including ‘It Was A Good Day’, and ‘Check Yo Self’. Great memories from a rapper-cum-actor. (Still waiting for that NWA-reunion album, Dr Dre announced about 18 months ago!)
8/10
Limp Bizkit
‘New Old Songs’
(Interscope/Universal)
Limp Bizkit’s song remodelled by variety of producers, The Neptunes, Timbaland, P-Diddy, DJ Lethal and the likes to (re)create, probably, the best album of the band’s career. Still, rock-rapmatic for the masses.
“…Which I bought in a plain binding, avoiding the buying of it better bound, because I resolve, as soon as I have read it, to burn it, that it may not stand in the list of books, nor among them, to disgrace them, if it should be found,” Samuel Pepys wrote in his diary. That’s how we feel about the Bizkit’s whole opus.
6/10
Tiberius Spocq
28-11-2001
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