So, to me, it seems that early on in their careers rappers/emcees need to decide if they're going to be class A or class B:class A releases a couple amazing albums but then becomes artistically spent and sticks around as a hollow shell of their former selves selling albums on reputation and glimpses of their former glory: Nas, Eminem, 50 come to mind.Then there's class B whom you have to wait ages for new material, but when it finally comes out they continue to amaze: Breeze Brewin, Dr. Dre, El-P.Then there's Aesop Rock, who's in a class of his own. He doesn't let more than a couple years go between an EP or LP, and seemed to drop amazing versus on everyone else's album in between, and yet with every new release the quality is easily as good as the previous one, if not better. It blows my mind when a rapper is as prolific and inexhaustible as AR is. Aesop doesn't try to draw fake buckets from his empty artist's well, rather I picture his well overflowing nonstop and it's all he can do to attempt to frantically catch even half of it.Although Blockhead is back I don't really see this as a step backward toward Labor Days and Float like others seem to. Everything is so refined and AR seems so comfortable and at home (almost in an "I'm dope and know it" sort of way) just as he was in Fast Cars and Bazooka. One nice innovation that worked out splendidly was the live instrumentation including the guitar riffs his wife lays down. As soon as I heard it scorch into the opening track I was like "oh, no you didn't just tastefully share a track w/ block and Aes did you! yes you did!" It works perfectly and it's yet another new take/direction for AR musically.All in all, the realist in me keeps waiting for Aesop to stop either dropping so frequently or become a hollow shell of his former self, but the fan wanting both quality and quantity has yet to be disappointed. Here's to having our cake and eating it too!
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