Various tyes of hip-hop...



Wiley - Treddin' on Thin Ice

Hmm... I think I may be a little disappointed by this - not really quite as good as I thought it could have been; annoyingly though, there are some glimpses of something a bit special, that is between the times when he's not going on about having/not having a girlfriend - or slagging Dizzee Rascal off. I quite like some of the almost 8-bit computer game sounding tracks, and Pies has a very funny chorus, but overall it feels like an album made of far too few ideas - and as much as I hate being unimaginative, it isn't as good as Dizzee's album.



Anticon Label Sampler: 1999-2004

Thirty three tracks for ?3.99, you can't go wrong with that. If you're looking for a way to get into one of my favourite (pseudo-)hip-hop labels, you're not going to get a better introduction than this. I've got quite a few of the tracks already, but as the tracks are sort of mixed together (pretty subtley), it gives a different perspective to the tracks I've already got - and the one's I haven't got are most welcome.



Vast Aire - Look Mom... No Hands

Solo album from Vast Aire of Cannibal Ox fame, which has some pretty damn high standards as The Cold Vein by Cannibal Ox is one of the finest hip-hop albums ever, partly because of Vast Aire's larger than life arrogant 'and yes, I damn well know it!' lyrics, but also because of El-P's sci-fi production work. For his solo album Vast Aire ditches El-Producto, and brings in pretty much every other left field hip hop producer: RJD2, Madlib, Nasa and DJ Cip One amongst many others. Although this mix of producers makes the whole album some what eclectic, it doesn't take anything away from the fact that this is Vast Aire's album, and a damn fine one it is too.