Debut album by Souls of Mischief, a hip-hop group from Oakland that is part of the Hieroglyphics collective founded by Del the Funky Homosapien. The group is made up of rappers Tajai Massei, Adam "A-Plus" Carter, Opio Lindsey and Damani "Phesto" Thompson, while production is provided by the producers of the collective Hieroglyphics. Crew members Pep Love, Casual and Del are guests on the album.
A juvenile record made by teenage boys, it deals with lighthearted weightless topics, including weed, girls, school, lots of bragging and lots of battle rap: despite there's some violent excerpt, most of the time these guys have fun and are carefree. The lyrics are completely functional to the rhythms and the lyricism of the disc is forgettable: there's an intricate metric structure well-done, so these guys say nothing for almost an hour, but they do it with a beautiful style. Their execution is deeply relaxed, slow, smoothness, with a fast, effortless and unstoppable rapping style: I don't know how to distinguish the four performers on this record, and I think I don't want to know how, in the end, it's not important. The production, on the other hand, is relevant. The soundscape of the project is made by A-Plus and the producers of the collective Hieroglyphics, including Domino, Del the Funky Homosapien, Jay-Biz and Casual. They make rhythms that sound East Coast: cool funky boom baps, hard pounding slow drums, amazing jazzy and funky samples.
Released by Jive Records, the album is coherent, relaxed and relaxing, it's one of the most East Coast products made by West Coast artists, living in the breath of the Native Tongues: light and accessible jazzy musical style, senseless whimsical lyrics, fluid cuts. With 14 choices and 55 minutes of listening, the album is deeply flowing and is an excellent debut that the group will never be able to replicate: nonetheless, it has neither the critical acclaim nor the commercial success of its New York counterparts, entering the top 20 rap records and being discovered as a musical masterpiece in retrospect (but don't trust who write that it has better lyrics than the production, he's taking a crazy blunder!).
The whole project is devoid of strong tracks, so when the title track arrives it's pretty surprisingly: the song is launched by a couple of near-perfect choices, with great samples, drums, rhythms and executions, so when "93 'Til Infinity" comes, it's almost like a liberation. Sample of Billy Cobham's "Heather" accelerated in an impressive way, intro on relaxed jazzy dope beat, then frenetic funky boom bap, very fast and frenetic essential drum, fast, smooth, effortless and relaxed delivery from all the rappers, dropping bars all the time on a simply wonderful, clean, ethereal jazzy background. It's an incredibly fresh cut and one of the best of the year, any genre.
Others highlights: "A Name I Call Myself", "What a Way to Go Out", "Never No More", "Anything Can Happen", "Tell Me Who Profits".
Rating: 8.5/10.
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