Blackalicious- Imani Vol. 1 (2015)

Blackalicious- Imani Vol. 1 (2015)

“You can't teach others if you are living the same way.”

James Brown

By: Ghost Writer

 It's been a while since we last spoke about a hip hop record, hip hop has somehow been losing that iconoclastic energy that people like Tyler the Creator or Lib B were displaying for a while; These wild cats for a moment seemed like the future of the genre, but something I don't know what, happened and we are facing the stagnation of hip hop nowadays.

But though times bring out the best of us, and after a couple of years inactive the innovative hip hop duo known as Blackalicious is back with its brand of avant hip hop in order to set the wheels of innovation again in movement within the genre.

Faith the record's first track is a laid back groove with warm choruses, gleaming sitars and a wooden bass that brings curious vibrations to our brains, but is on Blacka with its Lee Perry sample that things start to really roll as MC Gift of Gab appears with a devastating flow and a monuments voice that brings back to our mind the powerful voice of one of hip hop's greatest performers: Chuck D.

Warm sounds but effective as hell appear again on Ashes to Ashes a fast paced piece with infectious sing-alongs and shiny keyboards, Chief Xcel doing an astounding job on the mix board bringing a rich musical backing for Gift to laid his portentous lines, the band trying really to recapture those warms from the 70s and succeeding totally in this task and bringing some powerful drums and punishing horn section on the brilliant On Fire Tonight with its rapid fire rhymes.

Imani Vol. 1 is definitely not a groundbreaking document like previous recordings by the duo, but is a musical document that lives up to the strong reputation of the duo, as a pair capable of creating innovative and disrupted musical arrangements within a genre that unfortunately has few exponents really worried about expanding the instrumental reaches of hip hop, in this matter Blackalicious are really successful at creating music aiming to transcend as it happen on the soulful  afrobeat of Escape or on the afro pop of The Sun featuring Gift powerful voice, showing here that the band is not shy when it comes to introducing it's avant sounds to pop territory like in We Did It Again

Gift of Gab talent for complex flow is put in full display on the disjointed I Like the Way You Talk where the man really gets heavy on rhyming and performs really heroic lines that define him as one if the most powerful MC of the moment, one with not only the weight but the brains to follow the path of the legendary Chuck D.

The band closes this exemplary recording with the intense flows of Alpha & Omega, leaning towards afro futurism with awesome results while The Hour Glass puts Xcel talents on display on a piece that wisely conjures the spirit of soul music and the tripping qualities of dub while keeping infectious grooves rolling underground, making this record a great sonic return by a band decided to make hip hop relevant and innovative again.