Blackalicious — Melodica

Debut for the Blackalicious duo of Davis, California, formed by Xavier "Chief Xcel" Mosley, of Oakland, and Timothy "Gift of Gab" Parker, of Los Angeles. Their project is the second released for Solesides, a label founded by several artists including Mosley himself and DJ Shadow, both engaged in the production of the EP.

The tape musically focuses on jazz, with good samples, slow and tight drums and relaxed, sometimes too relaxed rhythms: the intro has an extravagant beat choice, while the second track features a dull and bland production, not good, made entirely by DJ Shadow, clearly not at his best in this joint. The producer redeems himself in "Swan Lake", which boasts a boom bap jazzy dope, left to breathe, with excellent samples from different covers of the song "People Make the World Go Round" by Stylistics. The least successful song is "Attica Black", a choice of over six minutes in which Chief Xcel creates a mushy, weak and limp music carpet with poor drum and decent samples, which is coupled with a lazy spoken and sung delivery by the performer. The best rhythm of the record is also produced by Chief Xcel, in "Cheezit Terrorist": the cut is short, decent drum, jazzy boom bap with honest G Rap sample and perfect drum, hard and pounding.

If the musical carpet provided by the beatmakers is quite honest and solid, the delivery made by Gift to Gab is not: his rapping style is excessively quick ("Lyric Fathom", "Rhymes for the Deaf, Dumb, and Blind", "Deep in the Jungle") or excessively lazy, sluggish, dull, bland ("Attica Black", "40oz. for Breakfast"), with no middle ground. He alternates a rapping delivery with a casual spoken and sung style. The interpretation of this rapper ruins the entire EP, already undermined by curious choices, such as putting two tracks at six minutes, one at seven minutes and one at eight minutes: it's a seven-track album, basically, with thirty-five minutes of listening, and it's pretty patchy. The lyricism of Gift a Gab isn't inspired, sometimes he releases some socio-conscious excerpt, but most of the time he prides himself on being one of the best on the circuit. Quannum MCs rappers Lateef and Asia Born (together with Blackalicious and others, they will later be among the founders of the homonymous label, heir to Solesides) they don't save "Deep in the Jungle", whose fast / ultra-fast delivery sounds tasteless to me on a ridiculous Xcel beat.

Ultimately, it's an interesting product for fans who want to know where Blackalicious started and how their sound was different before turning to funk, for everyone else, listening isn't recommended, a few spins to "Swan Lake" it's enough.

Rating: 6/10.