CSD - Emmett Till's Revenge (Ankh Ba Records)

This is one of the two albums that Labtekwon's label released in July, along with the Tao Of Slick record I wrote about a while back. CSD is another group in which Lab is a member, along with Supreme and Chin Chilla, and I didn't even realize until recently how far they all go back together. Apparently they've been a group since the 80's, and they have another album from 1997 that has since been reissued as part of the Labteknology series. Still, it's very much a Labtekwon album in most respects, he's the only MC on more than half the tracks, and most of it is produced by Thur Deephrey from the Tao Of Slick. As usual, Lab puts a lot of food for thought in his lyrics, in the first song alone a lot of lines really grabbed me, and there's a big undercurrent of racial commentary throughout the album, as implied by the Emmett Till reference in the title. I kinda wish there was more of the other MCs, though, it's hard to get a real handle on them just from the handful of songs each are on.

CSD (Chin Chilla) - "410 Block Boss" (mp3)
I remember Chin Chilla jumping onstage at the Tao Of Slick show at Eden's Lounge that I saw, and I kinda like his style, he has a unique voice. This is one of the 2 tracks produced by Max Mineblo, who's done a lot of work on Lab's solo albums, and it's kind of refreshing to hear a different MC on the kind of beats that you usually only hear Lab on, especially with Chin doing a little of the boasting, street-oriented lyrics that you usually think of Labtekwon as being in opposition to.

Labels: Labtekwon, mixtape/album review, mp3