Album of the month

February is little shorter than any other month of the year and the beginning of the year months are usually slow going. I was really hoping to get my hands on Durrty Goodz's debut album, but it's been pushed back to hopefully March. Also Pete Rock & Smif N Wessun's album that was pushed back to April.

Surprisingly enough there were a few very good albums released last month and my choice for album of the month came down to between Slaughterhouse, Verbal Kent, Saigon and Joell Ortiz.

Slaughterhouse (a hip hop supergroup now signed to Eminem's Shady Records)- Slaughterhouse EP is a fine album and it features a track with Drez from the legendary Black Sheep that I can't quite get enough of. The track is called 'Back On The Scene'. Check it out!

Joell Ortiz who is also associated with Slaughterhouse (he will soon be with them under Eminem's label as well) released a dope album called 'Free Agent'. The album has tracks produced by legends like DJ Premier, Just Blaze and Large Professor and features bars by Fat Joe, Royce Da 5'9'' and few others.

Verbal Kent is a talented lyricist from Chicago, who's been in the game over 10 years. Although he might not be known to an average hip hop fan, he is well respected and known by both legends of hip hop and deepest hip hop fanatics. On his official website it is said that connecting wholly with 10 people is often better than touching 10,000 on the surface. I definitely recommend checking him out! Start by checking his videos from here: http://www.verbalkent.com/videos

Now, I've saved the best for last. Here it is - hip hop album of the month in February is

Saigon - 'The Greatest Story Never Told'

Saigon might be known to some of you Entourage fans where he plays himself. After nearly 10 years of street albums and mixtapes Saigon finally releases his debut studio album. The album has a monstrous list of legends who worked on the album and he himself claims it to be one of the best albums of the past 20 years. Well, I'm not too sure about that, but it certainly is what I would call a 'fresh2death' (for future references the term according to urban dictionary is a term used to describe something that is so good it is inexplainable) album.

Production on the album is mostly done by Just Blaze with some big name contributions by Kanye West and Buckwild. Featured appearances on the album are from Fatman Scoop, Q-Tip, Jay-Z, Swizz Beats, Faith Evans, Bun B, Black Thought, Layzie Bone.

The album debuted on Billboard 200 at 61st place selling 11,000 units and it has been well received all around. I'm not going to list my favorite tracks this time just because every track has something I like and they are all too different from each other. The Album has heavy bangers, sad slow jams and everything in between. So I'm sure theres something for everyone, for me there's 18 tracks of dope in the purest form!

Here's an example from the album 'Greatest Story Never Told':

My rating for the album is: 5/5

Album of the month

Since it's the first time I'm writing this I'll give a little intro of what to expect. Every month I will be writing about the best new album released within a month (in my opinion obviously), outlining the best tracks and giving it a score out of five.

Album of the month in January is Talib Kweli - 'Gutter Rainbows'.

Although Talib released an album with Hi-Tek ('Revolutions Per Minute') in 2010, it has been three and a half years since his last solo album ('Eardrum') and I was quite exited to hear what he has to say. It's his first only digitally released album and you can hear him talk about the changing music industry. Since it was released just a week ago, it's early to say how well it has done in the charts, but his last solo album ('Eardrum' in 2007) sold 60,000 copies in its first week and debuted at number 2 on U.S. Billboard 200. 'Revolutions Per Minute' (in 2010) debuted at number 18 and sold 21,000 copies in its first week. Although 'Gutter Rainbows' was highly anticipated I doubt it will top his previous solo album only because the music industry is in a decline, but hopefully it will top 'Revolutions Per Minute'.

Best tracks are:

1. Track 4: 'Palookas' produced by Marco Polo, is a nice dark track to bump your head to; track's hook is 'You ain't got a verse better than my worse one'.
2. Track 6: 'I'm On One', which samples Beastie Boys 'The New Style' and is produced by Khrysis is a definite banger that shows Talib is not to be messed with.
3. Track 7: 'Wait For You' feat. Kendra Ross, produced by S1, has a lot of different instruments and in some ways it reminds me of Outcast's style.
4. Track 10: 'Friends and Family' produced by E. Jones is a nice soulful track where Talib sums up his life in the music business using clever puns that include people he has been involved with through out his career.
5. Track 13: 'Uh Oh' feat. Jean Grae is produced by Madlib's younger brother Oh No.

All that talk about hip hop is dead couldn't be further from truth with cats like Talib Kweli bringing us realness with his latest album 'Gutter Rainbows'. His lyrical content is straight up fire and the beats are real bangers. Even though 'GR' didn't have giants like Kanye West, Pete Rock, Will.I.Am, KRS-One, DJ Khalil, UGK, Norah Jones, Madlib and others involved in the making of the album like his previous 'Eardrum' did, I still think 'GR' is better because it has less known people like Madlib's younger brother Oh No, Marco Polo, Khrysis, Kendra Ross and many others who worked very hard to bring out this brilliant album.

Here is a an absolute banger from the album, 'I'm On One' (when you press play then change 240p to at least 480p, down right next to YouTube logo, cause quality is everything!!):

My rating for the album is: 4/5