Friday, July 31, 2009

918. Common - Like Water for Chocolate (2000)



















Track Listing

1. Time Traveling (A Tribute To Fela)
2. Heat
3. Cold Blooded
4. Dooinit
5. The Light
6. Funky For You
7. The Questions
8. Time Travelin Reprise
9. The 6Th Sense
10. A Film Called Pimp
11. Nag Champa (Afrodisiac For The World)
12. Thelonius
13. Payback Is A Grandmother
14. Geto Heaven Remix T.S.O.I.
15. A Song For Assata
16. Pops Rap III....All My Children

Review

We get to a hip-hop album which is kind of different. This makes it more interesting in a purely cerebral way, the musical references are good, from Fela Kuti to A Tribe Called Quest.

This fact does not prevent me from thinking that these references could have been used much better and that in the end the album is not as fascinating as it might look from a description.

I would really like a hip-hop album that would truly embrace Afro-beat, for example, and while this nods in that direction it doesn't make much use of it. Still, it is a pretty good, above average hip-hop album.

Track Highlights

1. The Questions
2. Song For Assata
3. Pops Rap III....All My Children
4. Heat

Final Grade

8/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

Like Water for Chocolate is notable for its afrocentric themes. It borrows from the Afrobeat genre on the track "Time Travelin' (A Tribute To Fela)", the Tony Allen-sampling "Heat" and the Slum Village-assisted "Nag Champa (Afrodisiac For The World)". MC Lyte and Mos Def join Common for the amusing "A Film Called (Pimp)" and "The Questions," respectively. In the former, Common sends up his own "conscious" image with a skit depicting him as a hypocritical woman-beater.

Like Common's previous two albums, Like Water for Chocolate closes with spoken word recited by Common's father Lonnie "Pops" Lynn. A slightly altered version of the album was released after its success on the charts, with the Macy Gray-assisted "Geto Heaven Remix T.S.O.I. (The Sound of Illadelph)" replacing the original.

All their videos on youtube have the sound turned off.... oh well, no video today.

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