Jeanius - Jean Grae

As you all know, I'm very picky about my hip hop, growing up one of those kids with a notebook full of rhymes that traveled from cypher to cypher, to this extent, its made me very critical of my lyrical content when it comes to hip hop, and made me reject 95% of whats played on the radio and labeled hip hop. and though I am very vocal about the fact the better rappers and lyricists are out of the United States these days, I happily will admit when I find a great mc based here. I've known for many years of the legend that is Jean Grae, the female MC from New York City with a flow that I might actually have trouble finding a female or even male MC that can match it. Makes alot of sense really, Jean's musical pedigree is abit hard to touch, born in South Africa to two well known jazz musicians, and learning on her way up from artists like Talib Kweli, and The Roots (ironically the roots also started off the career of Jean's sound-a-like Eve also.) It seemed destiny for Jean to get into the business, and with 8 albums to her name (2 mixtapes, 5 albums and 1 album dropping in late sept.) its safe to say that Jean's reached her destiny.



I've decided to give you all the kind of controversial album "Jeanius", which saw its offical release in early 2008, but bootlegs have been available sense 2004, its an album she's done with production maven 9th Wonder, one of the greatest producers i've come across in many years, but then I do love his other work, so yeah.. as a whole "Jeanius" is a great disc, very easy flowing and enjoyable, the beats are tight and work perfectly with that lyrics which are as sharp and onpoint, as in the standard when it comes to Jean. Even from the intro, you hear how perfectly everything fits together, its followed up with "2-32's" a great banging track with rapper Daily Planet, the uptempo flow works amazingly well with the piano and bass guitar backing. That sets the flow and tone for the album, deep intellectual tracks, mixed with uptempo bangers that'll get play everywhere that people care about actual lyric content and not about who's shoes they're wearing.



Its hard to really go into detail with this album, its not that its not good or worthy of listening too, its just that you gotta really listen too it to fully get what Jean's saying with it, its a blueprint of who she is, kind of a hard to pick apart something of that nature, when really you must listen too it completely to understand it, its kind of akin to Marven Gaye's "Whats Goin On?" or any other classic soul album back in the day. She talks about her childhood, her teenage years, to her miscarriage, love, hate, life and such, its really a beautiful painting of who she is and the world around her. From drug tales to young girls selling themselves at early ages, to everything in between. Its really abit mindblowing as a whole, and you must listen, thats really all I can say.

Will everyone like it? I think if you're a fan of well constructed beats, and inanely good lyrics, then you'll love it, or if you're interested in seeing what real hip hop is about, instead of that on the radio crap, give her a listen. I know I didn't go into alot of description, but seriously its one of those discs you gotta just hear to understand.

here is a video sample....




Artist: Jean Grae
Homepage: http://www.ihiphop.com/jeangrae
Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/jeangrae
Album: Jeanius
Genre: Rap/New York Rap/Female Rappers/Intelligent Rap
Download: Here


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BC