REVIEW: RAKIM - G.O.D.S NETWORK: REB7RTH

3/5

Follow The G.O.D.

Eminem. Common. Pete Rock. Childish Gambino. All rap greats, who have released new classics in the last fortnight, that in itself has been an incredible run for the H.E.R. we know as hip-hop, following its fiftieth anniversary on this planet, like Asia. But even they would pay it in full, that when it comes to the best of the best. You can't look no further, like Eric B., than the leader that is Rakim. That's why the 'REB7RTH' of his new album features the who's who of the genre. From the old-school, Kurupt, Masta Killa, B.G. (no, not WNBA great Brittney Griner), Planet Asia, Snoop Dogg, Canibus, Chino XL, Kool G Rap, Joell Ortiz and Method Man. To the modern day and new, Hus KingPin, Compton Menace, Kobe, Louis King, Sally Green, 38 Spesh, Fred The Godson, Skyzoo, KXNG Crooked, La The Darkman, Tristate, X-Raided and Big Twins.

I was once lucky to see Rakim rocking the bells in Manchester with the Black Star of Mos Def and Talib Kweli ('Subway Surfin'' is still so sick) and what would have been De La Soul before tragedy hit. One of the toughest rappers alive admitted that he was afraid of flying (ain't no shame in that, I'm afraid of aeroplane food, for one), and took the (mother expletive) Queen Mary to get there in the North West of the UK. You know, that's dedication. So it must have taken a whole lot of Greyhounds across these United States to get all these collaborators on wax. The God MC even reaches to the heavens on beautiful tribute tracks and features to the late, great luminaries of Nipsey Hussle, DMX and Prodigy on the respective playlist picks, 'LOVE IS THE MESSAGE', 'GOD'S PLAYGROUND' and 'SIGN OF SE7EN' (like the Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman movie) in all-caps. The Darkman X one particularly stirring, as the 'Flesh Of My Flesh, Blood Of My Blood', Def Jam icon offers up a preshow prayer to the most-high.

But what would all these amazing artists call the main feature presentation of this pack, who always stands out on his own album, never overshadowed? The G.O.A.T.? The G.O.D.? It's HIM, and on 'G.O.D.'S NETWORK: REB7RTH', this network hits you with the rhythm of some of the rawest Rakim rhymes since he sweated the technique. Sure, the album artwork, feeling as fresh as an early 2000s mixtape cover, is a little dated, like some of the production here. But like 'The 18th Letter' and 'The Master', this one holds you in his time capsule trance of tradition, knowing that 'Kim still rules like his 'Addictive' appearance, and the remix to such, on a Dr. Dre produced feature. And if you refuse to believe that, I'm sorry, but the Truth Hurts like the fact we never got that Aftermath album. Word to Bishop Lamont. Some may be sick that after 15 years, this 'BE ILL' introduced 'INTERNATIONAL' album only has seven tracks. Is it an EP? Please! Did you forget about signs and 'The Seventh Seal'?

The divine number of seven gives you so many bars, with as many hooks as J. Cole has guest features, that you will be well and truly hooked. 'NOW IS THE TIME' to get down with real rhymes again, as Rakim raps, "Life ain't a game, but I'm winning (Uh) knowing my opponent is death/Loving every minute 'til not a moment is left/Like I ain't got a moment to rest before they bury me/The goal is to be one of the best and hope the legacy/Is what enormous is." Here's hoping he knows it doesn't get much bigger than this. As the 'PENDULUM SWING' like a metronome, the G.O.A.T. keeps it going with legacy re-making lines like, "Here come Ra to swing the pendulum/Gun bars ring ears and put the fear of death in 'em/Once law, empires fall, shook like the Nephilim/Sun God with enough fire to cook the Devil in." Starting beef with Satan, as the God Emcee lets the chain swing with that big cock and balls energy. All on the same New Music Friday the Empire Of The Sun put their hands together to 'Ask That God' delivers them like Ghostface Killah's son. Decades in the game, Ra is as royally appointed as the half-century coronation alone when it comes to hip-hop. And this rebirth is only just the beginning. TIM DAVID HARVEY.

Playlist Picks: 'LOVE IS THE MESSAGE (Feat. Nipsey Hussle, Planet Asia, Kobe, Louis King, Sally Green & Snoop Dogg)', 'GOD'S PLAYGROUND (Feat. 38 Spesh, DMX, Fred The Godson & Skyzoo)', 'SIGN OF SE7EN' (Feat. Prodigy, X-Raided, Big Twins & Method Man)'.

Spin This: Rakim 'The Seventh Seal'.

REVIEW: EMPIRE OF THE SUN - ASK THAT GOD

4/5

Sun God.

God is love, like Marvin Gaye sang, and under the sun we have a new album from the Empire. No, not 'Star Wars', but the futuristic sound of the band named after a Steven Spielberg war movie starring John Malkovich, Miranda Richardson and a young Christian Bale. Australian act, Empire Of The Sun are back. Almost a decade after 2016's 'Two Vines' showed us that the electronic music duo have still got it when it comes to 'Walking On A Dream' and looking so Bowie glam, even Ziggy could take notes. All in the same year fellow early 2000s electric, eclectic pop luminaries MGMT returned with a 'Loss Of Life', this February, like it was no longer time to pretend.

Want to hear it? All you have to do is 'Ask That God' does too. As the Sun shows us Aussie's still rule music like the great INXS, AC/DC, and modern greats like The Jezabels (come back soon) and Angus and Julia Stone, who also came back this year from Down Under with 'Cape Forestier'. It's been a great year for music from beyond the Gold Coast, and now it's complete with the tide that comes in for this musical ship that sails to Thailand, and all spots in the Far East, like Japanese 'Cherry Blossom'. That single, plus the summer scorchers of 'Music On The Radio', 'Changes' (no, it's not a Tupac or Ozzy cover) and 'That Feeling You Get', complete with their epic, electric vivid videos of dynamic direction show us that pure pop music can border on the biblical. Art like this album's classic cover to add to the compelling collection, like the part two of 'Ice On The Dune' for your messiah.

The fabulous flamboyance of Nick Littlemore and Luke Steele in this iconic hour of chaos can not be tamed...and who would want that? But it is these amazing artists who are in awe from their rickshaw as they traverse the Thai streets. It's enough for them to harmonize on the instrumental ending, almost seven-minute 'Rhapsodize', that waxes lyrical like a closer, until it is chased by the compelling, different but definitive 'Friends I Know'. This EMI Australia record even features friends the former members of The Sleepy Jackson and PNAU know. Collaborating with Littlemore's latter project on the accomplished 'AEIOU' that's as delightfully daft as a punctuated punk. For this fourth album, complete with its own four-date Australian tour, a blessed Steele says the LP, "represents the greatest shift in consciousness our world has ever seen and that's reflected in the music." Meanwhile, Nick adds, "there might have been as many as 1,200 songs that we wrote in that time to get to the 12 we have here."

Tuning in like 'Television', all the way to the titular track, we would have listened to all one thousand plus too. Because there's just something so soulful about this electrical storm that will wash over you too when you give it all a listen. Saved from the cutting room floor, we get the likes of 'Happy Like You' that keeps the joy euphoric and the brooding bliss of 'Revolve' that circles around these boys in a bubble, bordering a bonsai tree. "Me and my rhythm/Use it in my day/Individual stance/Underground heaven/Urban duck and cover/Mama's at the door/Shaking cans of soda/Forty on the floor", Steele sings, as "all around the world, boys and girls are falling in love." It's a 'Wild World' too. One that knows, "Somebody told me everybody's lonely/So many phoney/Innocence is in me and you/Can't have it both ways/Everybody's gotta do my love/'Cause we're opening doors." That's the resolve to revolve on from these Sun God's like a Wu-Tang son or 'One Piece' Japanese anime character. This Empire hits you with a sun burning charge, as you plug into the real escape plan from a planet in peril. You couldn't ask that God give you anything more. TIM DAVID HARVEY.

Playlist Picks: 'Music On The Radio', 'Cherry Blossom', 'Rhapsodize'.

Spin This: Empire Of The Sun 'Two Vines'.

REVIEW: JIMIN - MUSE

4/5

The Face Of Your Muse.

The reunion of BTS, after their hiatus, may be on the horizon, but all the members of the South Korean pop phenomenon have released so much music (word to Toronto, Canada), you would be forgiven for forgetting they had even left in the first place. There's been so much quality, 'Like Crazy', over such a short period. Only fellow rap collective, the Wu-Tang Clan, and their individual icons, have released records like this at a relentless, classic clip. And doubling up, even the most prominent players are now releasing their second string of albums during the temporary split.

Mere months ago, the rap monster leader of RM followed up his inspired 'Indigo' with the matrimony of the 'Right Place, Wrong Person' concept, just a calendar and so much change later. And now, just a year and a few months since we came fact to 'Face' with his debut LP, one of the most popular parts of BTS and their amazing ARMY, Jimin, releases his own concept follow-up for his 'Muse'. A part two, like 'Set Me Free'. One that you will make your muse like a British band in an instant. All as Jimin and RM show us after their successful solo album debuts, their sophomore sets are even deeper and better. Darker, but still with that sense of joy. We can only hope, J's next work sugars us the same.

Dressed up for his own white wedding and nice day, the circus is back in town for the lovely lead single 'Smeraldo (the fictional flower of BTS in a dream world, like a Yellow Submarine) Garden Marching Band' featuring Loco and a beautiful video that would do the childlike abandon of the Teletubbies proud. You've never head happiness quite like this. Especially with lyrics like, "Ooh, I love you, babe/다가갈게 너에게/I love you, babe (Yes, Sir)/Ooh, I want you, babe/I wanna hold your hand/I want you, babe", with Beatles beauty. Simplicity, like love, is purity.

What a beautiful, brooding 'Rebirth' with this truly brand-new album. It's 'Showtime' like an inspired interlude after the intro. And this album has it all, like a Sofia Carson collaboration on such a beautiful 'Slow Dance'. But stepping lively like Blake, 'Who' could give Michael Jackson's 'Billie Jean' dancing a run it's moonwalking? Jimin in a leather jacket, that's who! In the 80s, video game and pizza parlour inspired, city slicking video that moves in perfect time to the lines, "We never met, but she's all I see at night/Never mеt but she's always on my mind/Wanna give her thе world/And so much more/Who is my heart waiting for?/I'll take her places they ain't found yet/I'll put it all on the line/I'll be that someone she can count on/One, two, three, four, five."

Like prom punch pretending to walk down the aisle, there's a corsage for 'Be Mine' that blooms into a lovely dedication of young love. But the real love and loyalty, at it's most poignant and powerful, comes with the closer 'Closer Than This'. The latest single and photo book video reaches out to Jimin's BTS brothers with memories like a Disney documentary that shows us all is not lost, and of course...the best is yet to come. The seventh seal says it straight, "'Cause anytime you want me (I'll be)/Right here where you call me (I’ll be)/I could never let you go/Never let you go/Whenever you need me (I'll be)/If you believe me (I'll be)/I'll never let you go/Never let you go." Which we, as fans, hope is sooner rather than later with this love letter to his squad. Signed, sealed and delivered....it's yours. Sometimes your muse is just love in itself. And who has more heart than this? TIM DAVID HARVEY.

Playlist Picks: 'Interlude: Showtime', 'Smeraldo Garden Marching Band (Feat. Loco)', 'Who'.

Spin This: Jimin - 'Face' EP.

REVIEW: CHILDISH GAMBINO - BANDO STONE & THE NEW WORLD

4/5

Lando Stone

This, right here, is it. Finito! Done. Rocking a Spam cap (because, the internet? Or canned meat?), and a Hawaiian shirt Tom Selleck's moustache of Magnum P.I. would be proud of, all whilst holding a chicken pensively, watch out! This is the fifth and final album from Childish Gambino. Mere weeks after he revisited '3.15.20.' for the amazing 'Atavista' reissue (but for as much as I love the 'Final Church', I wish I could still hear the sermon of the sensational '53.49'). It all started with 'Camp' for the 'Community' and 'Atlanta' actor who showed us 'This Is America' between many classic LPs, EPs ('Summer Pack', and...well, 'EP') and many mixtapes. And it ends with 'Bando Stone & The New World', for the Lando 'Star Wars' star and Marvel Prowler. The soundtrack to the upcoming movie of the same name that you can preview in some inspired interludes here that sound hilarious.

'The Bandalorian', feeling like summer again, with this pack that has vibes of the 'Mr and Mrs. Smith' player's prime time in the Amazon with Rihanna for 'Guava Island'. Collaborating with the likes of Chlöe from that famous Disney family ('Survive'), Amaarae and Flo Milli ('Talk My S###'), Jorja Smith ('In The Night', also with Amaarae), Legend ('Can You Feel Me'), Yeat ('Crusin''), Fousheé ('Running Around') and Leon Bridges' favourite under the 'Texas Sun' and moon, Khruangbin ('Happy Survival') for his latest, greatest classic. 

Lit up by the lead single 'Lithonia', 'Bando Stone' feels like a black superhero in the 'Predator' forest, rocking Luke Cage yellow. This brave new world samples 'Breathe' by The Prodigy, starting that fire on 'Got To Be', with Luke's 'I Wanna Rock', right now. Kermit's African alphabet on 'Can You Feel Me'. The 'Happy Survival' of Ifeanyi Eddie Okwedy & His Maymores Dance Band on said song. Glover's own '0.00' on the all-affirming 'We Are God' and even the video game effects of Undertale on the outstanding opening of the f#####g fantastic, 'H3@RT$ W3RE M3@NT T0 F7¥ '.

Classic, like the cover of amazing artwork. All the way to the beautiful swan song of 'A Place Where Love Goes', Gambino's last gambit is the coolest cut of the year. He even references the Japanese restaurant chain 'Yoshinoya', and if you don't know, now you better get yourself down there. But never fear in these last orders, after last week when hip-hop proved it was still alive after 50 years, thanks to part one of Common and Pete Rock's new collaboration ('The Auditorium') and 'The Death Of Slim Shady' by Eminem. In a 'New World' that is just as hallmark hip-hop as them, all whilst pushing the envelope, the coup de grâce here is that this is just the last album under the Childish Gambino moniker. Expect to hear more from Donald Glover soon, like 'Steps beach' and 'Got To Be'. Especially if it sounds as good as this high scoring, scorching soundtrack.

The stage-name may be retired, but this is not the end, like 'Atlanta' with this tentpole picture. If only we could get a Paper Boi feature on this trap hopping, R&B infused, indie pop, fresh feeling rocker. This perfect project of passion is 'Real Love' and maturity like, "It's clear that you're ever lovin', it's comin' from the heart/I never had anyone else to call on/It's clear that you're ever lovin', I knew it from the start/I opened my heart and inside was all gone/I never thought anyone else could be my friend/I'm lovin' you every day up until the end." Just definitive dedication from one of the world's most amazing artists across all platforms. 

There are 'No Excuses' here on the brink of a 'New World' world tour for the man that after saying he'd see us for the last Gambino album, told press, ""No one on their deathbed is going to look back and say, 'Thank God I avoided being cringe.'" And playing angel's 'Dadvocate', he gives us the greatest ode since Marshall Mathers' latest song for Hailie. "Know I'm smokin' in the morning 'cause I'm goin' five to nine/If I told you I was stronger than I looked, then I'd be lyin'/Got some dollars in my pocket and a quarter in my hand/You ain't safe bein' a woman and it's hard to be a man." It may no longer be childish, but Glover's Gambino, like Wu-Tang, is still for the children. TIM DAVID HARVEY.

Playlist Picks: 'H3@RT$ W3RE M3@NT T0 F7¥ ', 'Yoshinoya', 'A Place Where Love Goes'. 

Spin This: Childish Gambino - '"Awaken, My Love"'

REVIEW: COMMON & PETE ROCK - THE AUDITORIUM Vol. 1

4/5

Common People

If you still need to borrow a dollar, a few more of yours would help you get one of the greatest discographies in these 50 plus years of H.E.R. 'Like Water For Chocolate, or the 'Resurrection'. The experimental 'Electric Circus' that they hated and debated, but now it all makes sense, like 'One Day' (or 'Universal Mind Control'). Just 'Be' like the 'Finding Forever' music of the new millennium that changed the game on a more positive tip. 'The Dreamer/The Believer'. Representing this Chicago streets in black and white like 'Nobody's Smiling', or the dis-United States hoping to be 'Black America Again'. As we 'Let Love' rule like Lenny. This is Common music. And on the same New Music Friday as the grace of fellow legend Eminem give us 'The Death Of Slim Shady' for a great day in hip-hop, Common links up with another one in 'NY's Finest' producer Pete Rock. Makes sense.

Like the double decadence of 'A Beautiful Revolution' parts one and two, Common and Pete Rock give us 'The Auditorium, Vol 1.', and we're already crate digging for the second volume of work that rhymes like common sense's moment of clarity. Illuminating and amazing, like the album artwork at night of the theatre of kings with two walking below that could rival the Chicago one, or anything on and off Broadway. And if you don't know Notoriously, now it's time to 'Wise Up', like the street slick single for the people that's Common's best since his 'Ghetto Dreams' with Nas, waking up that 'Respiration' with Talib Kweli and Mos Def as he breathed new life into Black Star. Rocking with Pete, Com raps "Three wise men came to visit where I've been/Thеy brought gifts with the southside blend/Onе had Hennessy—the other, a book of street ministry/The third gave a mirror and told me to remember me (Huh)/Assemblies of similes and metaphors/Analogies that's analog/The reservoirs I come from, n####s got the dog in 'em (Woof)," before the MC Shan chorus on this true throwback like an LL Cool J bucket hat for your baseball cap.

Get those tracksuits back on, B-boys and girls. It's time to pop and lock again from the jazzy intro to the soulful outro, and 'All Kinds Of Ideas' like the single, or 'Dreamin'' live sessions for Vevo Ctrl and Jimmy Fallon's The Tonight Show performance of 'When The Sun Shines' featuring the prolific Posdnous and the brilliant Bilal. The truest testament of that school, "For me, this all started with A Dream," Common typed out on his IG. "A Dream to let the world know I’ve been here. A dream to be a part of Hip Hop. A Dream to MC at a level where De La Soul, A Tribe Called Quest, KRS-One and Ice Cube knew who I was. It’s been a dream of mine to work with the LEGENDARY Pete Rock (on more than just one song). I’ve been Dreamin’ my whole life." And this amazing 'Auditorium' for your audio players really does start with a dream too, like DeBarge. 

"Baby, we could do it/.Take your time, do it right/I was hearin' melodies and rhythms through the night/This was a dream that felt real like a fight/What made it realer, J Dilla was there in the light/A movement was happenin', H. Brown was rappin' it/And Kool G and Polo talkin' 'bout they back again/I seen Prince; he was time-travellin'/Through the Morris Days and Gladys Knights (Woo)/Sheila E. reminded me about the glamorous life/Ali was tellin' me why he had to fight/The struggle, he never left so we could have our rights/Biggie and Prodigy told me to grab the mic (Yeah)/I was shook; now ain't no such thing 'cause when I touch dreams, they become things/As the sun beam, I seen queens like Latifah/Chaka as I daydream with Aretha (Woo)", Sense says today on 'Dreamin'', sampling Franklin as such. To be Frank, you'll remember this one as it resonates in real time.

For Chicago, man, like Lupe Fiasco, Common Rock sample 'Ye for 'Chi-Town Do It', reminding us of the good ole days we wish could just 'Be'...'Forever'. Missed like the raps of Pops. All for the Common good. Music. Show 'em how you get down! 'This Man' is something, rapping, "I drop a gem in the ocean/Soundwaves of underground days put this man in motion/I quarterback/Like Water raps/And Chocolate supported that on stage, my daughter rap/She was an infant, now she see infinity/I'm a gentleman, I let 'em down gently/Good energy around/Born to fly but still see the ground, in life, I rebound/Like Draymond to get green, I've been on the inseam of big things," over beats that Rock for a golden state of mind...and rhyme.

There's more reason to the man who pens many a profound book too (his latest, 'And Then We Rise'), and his inspiration. From 'We're On Our Way', to 'Fortunate' from this son of H.E.R. whose penmanship reads like scripture. A ghetto gospel to song titles that sound and rap like the same affirmations you should repeat to yourself day-by-day as you rap in the mirror. His rhymes, sharper than the razor's edge of that glass that shatters. Cracking the top five, dead or alive again with lines like, "I jam on anything I am on/About to blow like I'm tryna keep my hands warm/God MC, I camе in a man's form/When I return to dust, it'll be a sandstorm/Tell the people the Master got plans for 'em/Pour a little liquor when I know my man's gone/Over broads, I'm never tender/With love, I force MD's to surrender/Ancient remedies that my gramps will remember//What I rely on, I'm a king like Simba/The people's agenda in my heart/Serve rappers à la carte/You playin' yourself, you shoulda never got the part/This is hip-hop theater," on 'Stellar' by starlight.Scream all you want like Julia Louis-Dreyfus in 'Seinfeld', but this is no act from the 'American Gangster' star who did scenes with Denzel, while Jay-Z who used to want to rap like him, laid down the soundtrack. 

Bilal comes 'round again with 'So Many People', Rock even raps on 'All Kind Of Ideas', and the star power gets real big and bright with 'Dreamgirl' Jennifer Hudson on 'A GOD (There Is)', maybe the most beautiful thing since 'Love Is'. It's not hard to see. But believe it on tracks like the 'Lonesome' tears deep and dark dive ("In the cycle, I spin like Michael Jackson/Moonwalkin', I do often, I knew loss in/Places where hurt tried to find its home/Like I'm tryna buy a house, I find myself a loan/When love is in the air with the wind, I be gone/My grandma say "You don't wanna die alone"), or 'Everything So Grand' with PJ for the PJs, this black Beatle is still giving it to us 'Now and Then'. Even if the city of wind is losing the power of its fallen stars like the retirement of MJ, after what happened with R. Kelly and Kanye. Lonnie Lynn is still here to put on for his city. As classic as the cover, this auditorium is atmospheric and something you won't forget. Until the second part gives us magic like Nas and Hit-Boy. Get your tickets. The seats are going up fast. TIM DAVID HARVEY.

Playlist Picks: 'Wise Up, 'Chi-Town Do It', 'Lonesome'.

Spin This: Common - 'A Beautiful Revolution (Pt. 1)'. Pete Rock - 'NY's Finest'.

REVIEW: EMINEM - THE DEATH OF SLIM SHADY (COUP DE GRACE)

4/5 

Ready To Die

The Eminem show is back, this is the encore, and it's far from over...even if it is for Slim. Shady has already given us the sequel to his classic 'The Marshall Mathers LP', and since then he's been on a tear. The American 'Revival' in 2017. The Beastie Boys like 'Kamikaze' a year later. And most recently 'Music To Be Murdered By' in 2020. But nothing is quite like this now with the 'Coup de Grâce' of 'The Death Of Slim Shady', burying the blonde in a body bag. Now you see him, now you don't like the 'Houdini' hallmark single and video with magician David Blaine that brings Batman and Robin back again, as the real Slim Shady just loses it with Dr. Dre one more time. Even if he won't be standing up for long. Ziiiiiiip!

The Aftermath and Interscope record is one hell of an alter-ego satire piece that takes it to Ja Rule, Will Smith and Superman again. Not to mention Kanye West and Diddy, as Paul Rosenberg is fixing to have a fit again. Offended? You should be. And sure, he still doesn't give a f###! But don't worry, Eminem is about to cancel himself. Or at least the same Slim Shady who declared 'My Name Is'. But who killed him? Well, the 'Unsolved Mystery' that you saw at the NFL Draft in his hometown of Detroit is about to be ripped right open. Because the game is so empty without him. Especially as Em mostly goes it alone, or at least with his Id, like on the 'Guilty Conscience 2' sequel, akin to a 'T.I. vs. T.I.P.', minus the good doctor.

D-12's very own Bizarre gets as such with the 'Antichrist'. Whereas, on the opposite side, Sly Pyper peppers 'Lucifer'. White Gold makes platinum 'Habits' (and a 'Bad One') with the diamond rapper, and JID 'Fuel's' Marshall like the 'Road Rage' of Dem Jointz and Sly Pyper again, who makes this album his Obie Trice like coming out party. Real rap name. No gimmicks. But whether it be the 'Head Honcho' of Ez Mil, the return of Skylar Grey (despite a playful jab), or the Jelly Roll jiggling closer, it's the Spider-Man feature that you'll really point to like the artwork as the next collaborative classic, let alone the second single. 'Tobey', featuring BabyTron and Big Sean, will hook you with the lines, "Tobey Maguire got bit by a spider, but see, me, it was a goat." Tron, Sean, Slim. Whoever penned that just wrote their way to the Hall of Fame. As if Eminem, Marshall Mathers and the real Slim Shady wasn't already there.

Just when you thought it was all over, the comeback is complete, like 'Beverly Hills Cop 4' for 'Axel F'...with even more F words. You can hear it on the minute and change 'Renaissance' intro of some of the realest ish he ever wrote, like, "Now let's travel inside the mind of a hater/'Cause I don't see no fans, all I see's a bunch of complainers/"Kendrick's album was cool, but it didn't have any bangers/Wayne's album or Ye's, couldn't tell you which one was lamer/Joyner's album was corny, Shady's new s### is way worse/Everything is either too tame or there's too much anger/I didn't like the beat, so I hated Might Delete Later"/You nerdy pr###s would find somethin' wrong with 36 Chambers." Now, cancel him all you want for giving you what he already has for the decades you've listened to him, but who really changed? In this entertainment, you're supposed to join, are you not with this rap gladiator too (I'm sorry 'II' in Roman numerals like the Ridley Scott sequel that can actually do it for all the pretentious pr###s)?

Punching down and all around, the bad 'Habits' sample the 'Safe Space' of South Park, while the 'Brand New Dance' hits the squares with lines like "Superman, Batman, Spider-Man/Slipped, fell, landed in a garbage can/S###, hell, damn it, I can hardly stand/But I get it crackin' like no one in the party can/Give me a beat, I'll show you all a brand-new dance/All I need is a stretcher and an ambulance." And you still marvel at it. Ring the siren like the alarms, because bad meets 'Evil' again with love to Royce. The outstanding opening bursts with brutality, but there's beauty in the end, like some of Mathers finest moments (see 'Beautiful' and 'Hailie's Song'). 'Somebody Save Me' admits, "Another pill as I start to spiral/Message to my daughters/I don't even deserve the father title/Hailie, I'm so sorry/I know I wasn't there for your first guitar recital/Didn't walk you down the aisle/Missed the birth of your first child/Your first podcast, lookin' down, sweetie/I'm so proud of how you turned out/Sorry that I chose drugs and put 'em above you/Sorry that I didn't love you enough to."

Hailie's new song of 'Temporary' featuring Grey hits you with, "Yeah, so Hailie Jade, I wrote you this song/To help you cope with life now that I'm gone/How should I start? Just wanna say/Look after Alaina, Stevie, and Uncle Nate/And, sweetie, be strong, I know I was your rock/And I still am, saying goodbye is just not/Ever easy, but why you crying?/Just stop/Hailie, baby, dry your eye, this is not/Forever." Is Eminem dying? Don't worry, it's just Shady. But this second ode to his daughter in swan song form is Marshall at his most magnificent. Despite what shade critics try to throw, they couldn't hit harder than the honest lines Eminem cleans out like his closet. So that's that. And even with the maverick bonus tracks, like 'Kyrie & Luka' with 2 Chainz and DJ Premier, and 'Like My S###', no cuts are deeper than this. Slim Shady may be over, but this coup is the grace. TIM DAVID HARVEY.

Playlist Picks: 'Houdini', 'Guilty Conscience 2', 'Temporary (Feat. Skylar Grey)'.

Spin This: Eminem - 'The Slim Shady LP'.

REVIEW: NEIL YOUNG & CRAZY HORSE - EARLY DAZE

4/5

Wild Pony

What happens when the cutting room floor could have given you so much more? Well, now there's no need to ask Neil Young and his band Crazy Horse. Wild horses couldn't drag the rolling stone, great Canadian songbook of this wonderful writer's work and classic catalogue away. The old man and the sea of re-releases over the steady stream of the last few years could fill the Xstream all by themselves, Spotify be damned. Even the former Pono platform Neil promoted with punctuation in his amazing autobiography 'Waging Heavy Peace'. In that magnificent memoir, Neil Young also talked about the lost Crazy Horse album 'Early Daze' from Crazy Horse's salad days that finally see its release as the 47th album from Young and Horse, chasing down the great Willie Nelson on their steed.

After more teases and postponements than movies during corona, we are finally in a daze. And 'Early', recorded in 1969, is better late than never in this renaissance of releases from Young. This Sunset Sound Reprise record follows their live 'F#####' Up' from earlier this year. Featuring classics like 'Winterlong', 'Cinnamon Girl' and 'Down By The River', amongst decades of numerous archival releases, this studio set almost feels like a greatest hits that you can 'Dance Dance Dance' to like amazing author Haruki Murakami in this victory lap release as those 'Early Daze' finally make it home. And this is still CNN, Larry, as there's even some Crosby, Stills & Nash for your reunion in the form of a 'Helpless' hallmark. In the same week that the 'Songwriter' talents of Johnny Cash are posthumously released, this band shows and proves that they are still alive across the airwaves with this great crate dig.

For the record, this is a bold and beautiful one to behold. From bootleg to one of the best in a compelling and creative collection. Recorded around what everyone knows as the album, 'Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere', these classics have their own right to lean up against the tree with man's best friend. We're taken out on the original 'Come On Baby Let's Go Downtown', and alternative takes of the titular like 'Everybody's Alone' and 'Birds' take wing. But 'Look At All The Things' we have here in this top ten. If you've been 'Wonderin'' about one of the best acts in the business, well, wonder no more as Young sings, "I've been walking all night long/My footsteps made me crazy/Baby, you've been gone so long/I'm wonderin' if you'll come home/I'm hopin' that you'll be my baby/I'm wonderin' if I'll be alone/Knowin' that I need you to save me." The legend has been created and curated for decades, but it was evoked so early. When this Crazy Horse was just a pony. There's nothing like the good ole daze. TIM DAVID HARVEY.

 Playlist Picks: 'Dance Dance Dance', 'Cinnamon Girl', 'Down By The River'.

REVIEW: LUPE FIASCO - SAMURAI

4/5

Yasuke.

Yasuke was the name of a man of African descent, serving as a samurai to Japanese daimyō Oda Nobunaga for fifteen months in the 1500s. His legend is well known. Recently, Yasuke has been immortalized in a Netflix anime voiced by 'Atlanta's' very own LaKeith Stanfield and an 'Assassin's Creed' video game. But peep some promotional photos of the 'Food & Liquor' of great Chicago (maaan) rapper Lupe Fiasco, and you'll see there's more than one black samurai.

Just like the amazing artwork that harks back to the Edo era with amazing anime styling, Lupe Fiasco's 'Samurai' is a masterpiece of reinvention for the man who has kicked, pushed, but never coasted his compelling career or catalogue. This ninth wonder of an album is an eight-track as such. Short and sweet like Sakura season, and to the point like the blade tip of a Japanese warrior. And boy are these barbs sharp, from the titular track, to taking it to 'Mumble Rap', there are no fiascos here. The cool of Wasalu Muhammad Jaco speaks ever so clearly. Just like he did as a 'Superstar' when all 'Lasers' were on him like the eyes behind those icing geek glasses. From 'Drogas' to 'Drill Music'.

1st and 15th and Thirty Tigers give you something smoother than Onitsuka sneakers in Ginza. Scoring a second Soundtrakk with the prolific producer 'In Zion' two years back like Ms. Lauryn Hill's joy. There's no miseducation here, going back to black. As off the 'Cake' of candles being blown out on a second-single, this samurai is actually about the life of late, great Brit singer Amy Winehouse (also immortalized in a brilliant biopic picture) released just days after what would have been the smouldering singer's 41st birthday. With this half-hour jazz rap, Fiasco gives us his best yet, after his definitive debut, for a cool concept of what it would have been like if the 'Rehab' singer was a battle rapper. She would have bested everyone. Yes. Yes. Yes!

To serve her, is to love her. And this Coachella announced album also takes cues from the chambers of the Wu-Tang Clan. Which is interesting, because Winehouse once told her producer Salaam Remi, "I keep coming out with battle raps and they're just pouring out of me. Like Wu-Tang stuff, but really neat, very beautifully alliterated little battle raps. So next time you wanna come for me and have a battle rap-off, I'm gonna kill you. Because I’m a samurai." Now can you see Lupe's looping point on his self-confessed most personal project yet as he feels close to his muse?

With a homage to heaven, Lupe builds 'Palaces' for Winehouse waxing, "We've been talented, all along/We think we're fortresses, made of stone/But we’re just palaces made out of flesh and bone/Waiting for our time to shine to come on home" lyrical with a mantra for the masses that amass artwork of the highest order. There's more of them than you think, hidden behind the silkscreen of those who think making money as a commercial product is more important than honing your craft in discipline and servitude.

Rocking his 'No 1. Headband' like he's about to ball out, Fiasco takes 'Bigfoot' steps off the skateboard stereotypes some still want to grind him in. "Front row the only row, the show sold nothin'/Then second thoughts spell intimacy as a plus/Plus, energy conducts, if I truly put my all in/The responsibility feels just like a callin'/The rest of thе crowd must be stallin' before thеy fall in/Or maybe this all them and there's no more autumn/Try not to worry 'bout the walkings and focus on the waltzin'/If the King of New York actually enters, that'd be awesome/But it's better not to get lost inside in a song talking." If this is what Amy might have had on her mind when she was thinking about rapping, then the gone girl really was amazing.

Going 'Outside' like George Michael with Kush Baby, Fiasco spits, "My business bone is connected to my ethics/In a series of daisy chain preferences that I filter things through, just like a checklist/In a much wiser bride pie with spouses on the top, such as, "I now happily apply these metrics"/To the setlist, on the surface, separates." for some bold and beautiful bars. Lines that last forever, like 'Til Eternity' of the curtain closer that reaches for the lost stars we still look for in inspiration. "Yeah, live in the flesh/Beehive survived in a wreck/I carry knives like samurais on a quest/That I drive in the chest like it's a riot in the treasure/He lost the game and cried in his checkers/Lost his name and now signs with an X." Sealed and delivered, this wonder is yours...and Amy's. As like a 'Liquid Sword' this 'Samurai' will be a classic for more than the next 50 years of hip hop's reign. Just like the legendary Lupe, remaking his legacy...and the one of Amy. TIM DAVID HARVEY.

Playlist Picks: 'Samurai', 'Palaces', ''Til Eternity'.

REVIEW: JOHNNY CASH - SONGWRITER

4/5

American Songbook

In the Winter of his discontent, American country legend Johnny Cash made magic with Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Beastie Boys and Jay-Z super-producer Rick Rubin. The world had 99 problems (it's got a hundred more now, though). Releasing volume after volume of his 'American Recordings' in bitter black and white for the Stars and Stripes. Covering everything from U2's 'One', to a redefining cut of the Nine-Inch Nails classic 'Hurt'. All to see if we still felt.

Now recording in the same monochrome vein for the great American songbook, and following Willie Nelson's 75th album at 91 years of age, the 'Songwriter' releases his 72nd album. Not bad for the Man in Black, whose been dead for over 20 years. He really was going to a funeral, like Joaquin Phoenix noted in his beautiful biopic to 'Walk The Line'. Or him putting a folded bill in Roy Orbison's coffin after losing a bet with the Travelling Wilbury that he wouldn't grow a ponytail. What more would you expect from Cash, who afforded recording albums in other languages like Japanese, so fans overseas wouldn't be lost in translation?

Yet this rising Mercury release from the Nashville legend with his own museum a few blocks from the Hall of Fame, in all its half-hour power, was recorded in 1993. Reminding us of being 'Out Among The Stars' like Elvis Costello remixing the redux of the Silver Spoon Café for 'She Used To Love Me A Lot'. "Old memories would win her heart for sure". As the man with a guitar, and a love letter in his back pocket, knows how to strike an ode and chord. On a wing and a prayer, the 'Songwriter' album beautifully begins with the out of this world single 'Hello Out There' that reaches out among the stars for signs of life.

"We're the third from the sun/We are blue and white/Spinning (spinning, spinning, spinning, spinning)/If you wish upon a star/Wish upon us tonight/We're dimming (dimming, dimming, dimming, dimming)/Hello out there/We're in the Milky Way/Sailing (sailing, sailing, sailing, sailing)/In this final fight for life and peace/We're failing (failing, failing, failing, failing)", Cash sings, in classic couplet concept. All for a song wrote in '93, which could have been penned yesterday with tomorrow's problems still on the horizon we stubbornly like to call hope. 

This fifth posthumous release from Johnny, produced by father and son John Carter Cash, alongside David R. Ferguson, Josh Matas and Mike Daniel, features 11 new and original takes from the Tommy Lee Jones of country music. All brought to bear by the fun lead single you'll just have to sing along to like 'Well Alright'. Straight out of the Cash Cabin, off the Rosey Cash LSI Studios demos, even without the overdubs last year, this real record would sound like the genuine article for review. Saved from the cutting room floor for this country King's Fort Knox vault of songs, as big as Prince's for your royal appointment. 

These recordings were shelved for America with Rick. Although standout songs like 'Poor Valley Girl' hark back to the 70s. Whilst you can find 'Sing It Pretty, Sue' like a boy of the same name on the 1962 'Sound Of Johnny Cash'. 'Drive On' and 'Like A Soldier' making their way to Rubin's recordings. Shining a 'Spotlight' on his song showmanship legend like the 'Icon' bonus disc that serves as a greatest hits, 'I Love You Tonite' says it plainly like matrimony. "And I love you tonite/Even more than I loved you in the sixties/And I know that we are right/Even more than I knew it in the seventies/Oh, baby, ain't we a sight?/Can you believe we made it through the eighties?/And will we make the millennium?/Well, we might/I love you tonite," to have and to hold across the hands and sides of time.

Marching on like a different 'Soldier Boy', 'Have You Ever Been To Little Rock'. Well if so, tell 'em, on this picture-perfect postcard of the great American landscape like the heads of Mt. Rushmore, north by northwest. "Those Arkansas women/Born with beauty and grace/Up in the Ozark Mountains/The one they call Betty Jean/You can see God's country/Put a smile on your face/It's the land of my family/Down in Cleveland County/It's where my mama and daddy were born/Where the singin' pines grow", this dear John can still turn his notebook into a cinematic vision. Or scripture for the gospel singer, whose word you should take as such. 

"And she looked to the skies, where hеaven should be/Said, "Could it be thеre's no heaven for me?/The only difference in my life and hell are the flames"", he sings on 'She Sang "Sweet Baby James"' leaving you with lyrics that last like lashes from the rain of another person's pain. Johnny always sang for the poor and downtrodden, from Folsom Prison, to the time 'When The Man Comes Around'. Turning dirty water into a holy cup with all his wonderful work that runneth over. In his last years as a 'Songwriter' of 'American Recordings', Johnny Cash was really on to something, as he knew this would be the legacy that lasted. He was already a legend, but walking the line, he stepped into another light that illuminated him like the icon that he is. Now we're the ones singing 'Hello Out There' in hopes he'll somehow hear our call. TIM DAVID HARVEY.

Playlist Picks: 'Hello Out There', 'I Love You Tonite', 'Have You Ever Been To Little Rock?'