Review: Blackalicious “Blazing Arrows”

Blackalicious
“Blazing Arrows”
(MCA Records)

Textured and Funky, at times laid back, at times in your face. Blackalicious delivers kick ass flows because as Guru once said ” its in the voice”. With a booming baritone voice, razor sharp wit coupled with downright ferocious metaphors to create one of the sharpest deliveries to be scene on the hip Hop landscape. “Blazing Arrows” offers what few albums do these days, the chance to listen again and again in the hope deciphering exactly what this cat is saying. Not to say that his flow is muffled or unclear, the enunciations are close to perfect. It’s just that homeboy is really that fast.

If there is a downside to any of this it is that there is certain repetitiveness to those hooks that in some cases leaves you waiting for him to start rhyming again. Owing as much to funk and Motown as to Hip Hop, there is a blending of styles that is deliciously black. This is the new school in terms of hip Hop, politically conscious lyrics married to live instrumentation. It is the utmost contrast to the super produced, pop styling of his MC counterparts. There aren’t any clichés here, songs are sung without “the in your face attitude” of trying to attain street creed. Simply put it’s music for the soul.