Word: albums
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...when he was just 17, Rakim released his first album Paid in Full with sidekick Eric B., and the track "Eric B. for President" instantly became a hip-hop classic. Although The Master, his second solo release doesn't match the freshness and energy of that early work, Rakim's rich-as-gold rhymes are as smooth and full of groove as ever. He flows effortlessly in funky tracks like "Uplift" and "All Night Long," and his silver-tongued baritone plays skillfully against Nneaka Morton's soft vocals in "I'll Be There." But it's in "When...
...there is a downside to the album, it would be Pierce's sentimentality. Much of the disc explores Pierce's current and previous relationships, as well as his breakup with his bandmates of ten years. Yet this is not the overdone sap of teenage pop idols, but the mature pondering of an adult. For Pierce, this is a fine return from his sabbatical...
...black grooves of a rock record than the groovy grooves of jazz. The band's dense style may resemble the deep, black, concentric grooves of records, but their first release is actually on compact disc. The name of the CD is Rewired. That name is also descriptive; since the album was released in mid-1998, Lockgroove's sound is sure to have changed--to have been rewired, so to speak...
...Even though it is a recording, Rewired does show this trippy quality. While the album's blurry red cover art does indicate Lockgroove's hard, masculine sound, it doesn't convey how psychedelic that music can be. It throbs, like a beating red heart. "Come On," a signature track, uses minutes of wavy keyboard woven in with guitar and cymbals to introduce a rhythmic fusion of rock and elecronic music. Soon half-chanty, half-punky lyrics join in and there are occasional whistles and bells. But ultimately the sound is full of relentless waves of guitar, drum and keyboard...
...some tracks, however, The Master suffers from dull production that doesn't do justice to Rakim's lyrical skill. Much of the music on the album lacks the ingenuity and funkiness of Rakim's previous recordings, and even the scratching that appears in most of the tracks sounds bland. But despite these shortcomings, Rakim still lives up to his reputation as master of the mic. He'll make you clap to this...