I usually think of Pink Floyd\u2019s Animals <\/i>while listening to \u201cIntro\u201d and \u201cOutro\u201d on Ventilation: Da LP<\/i>. These tracks remind me of \u201cPigs On The Wing 1\u201d and \u201cPigs On The Wing 2\u201d: boring, acoustic guitar-driven bookends that should have been left behind (for the record, the rest of Animals <\/i>isn\u2019t boring). The case of Ventilation <\/i>is even more annoying because of lyrics like this: \u201cIt\u2019s the pain inside my soul and it\u2019s aching \/ We all need a ventilation \/ It\u2019s the ventilation that we all need \/ To help the youth succeed.\u201d <\/p>\n
The mission of helping the youth succeed shows up again in \u201cAlphabet Soup\u201d: \u201cLet\u2019s do it for the kids, man \/ We can\u2019t afford not to \/ It\u2019s the only thing we have \/ They\u2019d rather listen to us kick it in a verse than to listen to Miss Crabtree at school.\u201d <\/p>\n
Fair enough. But why put a song like \u201cBen Dova\u201d in the middle of your album? Perhaps getting frustrated with women and telling them to bend over can lower high school dropout rates. And don\u2019t forget to call them bitches. That might increase student achievement in math and science. <\/p>\n
Phife wasn\u2019t always this malicious. While rapping with A Tribe Called Quest, he wouldn\u2019t shy away from sex or women problems (check out \u201cButter\u201d), but he was funny rather than mean and self-important. And he didn\u2019t blither about helping children only to come across as a hypocrite tracks later. Sure, \u201cAlphabet Soup\u201d is a solid song, but the album loses power as a whole when Phife can\u2019t live up to what he\u2019s saying. <\/p>\n
Indeed, Phife can still deliver good rhymes. But when his sermonizing doesn\u2019t seem hypocritical, he\u2019s bitching about industry rap. There\u2019s nothing wrong with criticizing what you see as superficial, and Phife makes a few valid points, but the album is song after song of this talk. <\/p>\n
Another occasional problem is the production. \u201cLemme Find Out,\u201d produced by Pete Rock, is the worst offender with its embarrassingly tiny beat.\u00a0 \u201cBeats, Rhymes & Phife\u201d could have used better production, too. Like \u201cMr. Nigga\u201d from Mos Def\u2019s Black On Both Sides<\/i>, \u201cBeats, Rhymes & Phife\u201d samples the recognizable \u201cLegend In His Own Mind\u201d by Gil Scott-Heron. However, the Scott-Heron sample on this album is muted and toothless. <\/p>\n
Most conversations about Ventilation <\/i>focus on Phife\u2019s disapproval of fellow Tribe member Q-Tip\u2019s debut album, Amplified<\/i>, but honestly, I sensed more anger toward the rap industry in general. Perhaps some of the harsh lyrics in \u201cFlawless\u201d refer to Q-Tip\u2019s mainstream effort, but they undoubtedly address a slew of rappers on the market. And read the album credits. Phife thanks Q-Tip. In that way, Phife hasn\u2019t changed. He\u2019s still concerned with the larger picture and doesn\u2019t attack individuals like a rabid dog. Too bad his debut is inconsistent at best. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":73,"featured_media":30158,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[8498],"rating":[5619],"class_list":["post-41800","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-phife-dawg","rating-rating-c"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41800","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/73"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41800"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41800\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=41800"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=41800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}