You know, somewhere in the late 90's it seems as though mainstream rap lost touch with everything that made it what it was. It turned in its political awareness for a night at the club and really never looked back. Thankfully, artists like Pharoahe Monch never lost sight of what made true hip hop gritty and good...a healthy dose of reality. His latest album, W.A.R., is a true hip hop record that's angry, political, and spot on.
W.A.R. is a raw, rough, and a rather heavy record that takes the weight of the world on its shoulders and just deals with it. With a level of self consciousness, awareness, and edginess about it, Pharoahe doesn't shun away anything and carves a path of lyrical destruction thirteen songs wide. The result of this direct approach is a fine beat ridden excursion into something so much more than just another hip hop record. With a whole host of collaborations including Living Color's Vernon Reid, the album embraces all kinds of sounds and has as many live beats as produced ones and has guitar solos packed next to choirs. It's a diverse album whose attitude and intelligence propel it.
W.A.R. isn’t a standard hip hop record and that's to be expected because Pharoahe is anything but a standard rapper. This is a powerful record that is cognizant and smart and thanks to the lyrics and rhyming of Pharoahe it succeeds at everything it sets out to do. Indie hop doesn't get much better than this.
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