admin
22 December 2023
Do I like these records? Oh yeah. So why not give them their own individual 300-word shine? Because I feel that they’re both going to suffer from the same unfortunate condition: being overlooked. The public can be real ignorant of the world going on just beneath radio level. Especially when it’s good.
Main Flow’s Hip-Hopulation plays out like a 17-track all-star high school yearbook. (Sucker MCs not pictured.) The production-- funky like that definition of \"good\" you have in your hip-hop head-- is handled by an assortment of producers, with Reason and Da Riffs claiming the most tunes. Atop the music, Main Flow keeps excellent lyrical company. Both Hi-Tek and Donte show up to bring the air of reunion about (all three entered the hip-hop world as the Cincinnati-rooted MOOD back in the day), rocking \"Hi-Tek Freestyle\" and \"Classic\" (with Black Thought of The Roots), respectively. And despite mic time being shared by lyrical champions like Talib Kweli (on the beautiful pull-no-punches cut \"Hip Hop Worth Dying For\"), Mikah 9 (\"Delivery Tactics\"), and Defari (with P Killer on \"Worldwide\"), Flow proves his merit tenfold, wasting no words and spitting with rare eloquence.
Then there\'s Insight-- another goddamn renaissance man if there ever was one. The Biography spills out of stereo speakers like a funky, layered walk through an overwhelming feeling of good. Maybe it’s the fact that every creative aspect of this record-- from engineering and mixing to scratching and rhyming-- was done by Insight himself. Maybe it’s his dabbling into art forms outside of hip-hop-- that true, universal sensation of absolute creativity-- that shows up in the music. Or, maybe it’s just that Insight is just plain badass.
The music he makes is so thick, you want to listen again and again to try and peel back each and every layer. Then you play it even more to devour all his verses, and try and figure out how a record like this isn’t on the radio. Cuts like \"Bother Me\", \"Lots Of Facts About Control\", and \"Another Intermission\" could easily blend in as instant classics alongside tracks by Gang Starr, Kool G. Rap, or old Freestyle Fellowship, respectively.
If you grew up on hip-hop enough to have a love for it, and miss the days when the records made you feel good or impressed you, find both of these in your record store.
Main Flow’s Hip-Hopulation plays out like a 17-track all-star high school yearbook. (Sucker MCs not pictured.) The production-- funky like that definition of \"good\" you have in your hip-hop head-- is handled by an assortment of producers, with Reason and Da Riffs claiming the most tunes. Atop the music, Main Flow keeps excellent lyrical company. Both Hi-Tek and Donte show up to bring the air of reunion about (all three entered the hip-hop world as the Cincinnati-rooted MOOD back in the day), rocking \"Hi-Tek Freestyle\" and \"Classic\" (with Black Thought of The Roots), respectively. And despite mic time being shared by lyrical champions like Talib Kweli (on the beautiful pull-no-punches cut \"Hip Hop Worth Dying For\"), Mikah 9 (\"Delivery Tactics\"), and Defari (with P Killer on \"Worldwide\"), Flow proves his merit tenfold, wasting no words and spitting with rare eloquence.
Then there\'s Insight-- another goddamn renaissance man if there ever was one. The Biography spills out of stereo speakers like a funky, layered walk through an overwhelming feeling of good. Maybe it’s the fact that every creative aspect of this record-- from engineering and mixing to scratching and rhyming-- was done by Insight himself. Maybe it’s his dabbling into art forms outside of hip-hop-- that true, universal sensation of absolute creativity-- that shows up in the music. Or, maybe it’s just that Insight is just plain badass.
The music he makes is so thick, you want to listen again and again to try and peel back each and every layer. Then you play it even more to devour all his verses, and try and figure out how a record like this isn’t on the radio. Cuts like \"Bother Me\", \"Lots Of Facts About Control\", and \"Another Intermission\" could easily blend in as instant classics alongside tracks by Gang Starr, Kool G. Rap, or old Freestyle Fellowship, respectively.
If you grew up on hip-hop enough to have a love for it, and miss the days when the records made you feel good or impressed you, find both of these in your record store.
artid
2651
Old Image
7_1_mainflowinsight.jpg
issue
vol 7 - issue 01 (sep 2004)
section
entertainmental