After years with Jurassic 5, Ozomatli, and countless guest appearances, we finally get a Chali 2na solo album. That’s right, that distinctive laid-back smooth baritone voice is striking out on his own. And while I’ve always enjoyed his verses and his voice, I was never so sold on his all around abilities that I’ve been waiting for him to strike out on a solo career. Upon listening to the album, my initial suspicions were confirmed - this album is very dependent on who is producing and guesting on each track.

This album is why I still believe in the power of the record store. I had never heard of Fashawn when I walked into a record store, looked around, and went over to the listening booth. After being disappointed by a few artists I already knew or had heard much hype about, I moved on to Fashawn. Much to my surprise, he was right up my alley. “Cheech Hop,” as my girlfriend likes to call it – Laid-back, funky soul samples with socially conscious lyrics.

Fans of Edan have been waiting for a follow up to 2005’s Beauty and the Beat for some time now, and while he still hasn’t given us a proper full-length follow-up with original material, he has given us quite a mix tape to tide us over. For this mix, Edan was given access to Traffic Entertainment Group’s vaults. In this situation, most people would simply find some favorite tracks, find an order that created a good flow, and put that out.

That’s right, Murs and Slug are back at it again. The third in a series of collaborations they’ve done, each time with a different producer and b-movie actress namesake. The first go round was with the Grouch, the second with Ant, and this time they’ve enlisted the help of Aesop Rock. The result here is a darker, more aggressive album than in the past. For the most part, this encourages the two veteran emcees to bring their battle rap to the project.

While they never really spent any time apart, both working together in Subtle, this is Jel and Doseone’s first album as a duo since 2002’s The No Music. After the promise of the freeHoudini mixtape gave us a glimpse of things to come, it feels great to finally have the album. While their work is Subtle was extremely interesting, and incorporated a lot of different sounds, Themselves is more stripped down and raw, much more immediate and forceful.

Way back when, Greenhouse Effect was Inwell, Blueprint, and Manifest. These days, they are just Greenhouse, and it’s a collaboration between two of Columbus, Ohio’s finest, Blueprint and Illogic. Blueprint handles the production duties, and brings his usual fare of spaced out down tempo beats. Both Illogic and Blueprint share a similar delivery that is slightly slow but clear and strong that gives an extra emphasis to their lyrics. The only glaring misstep on this EP is the use of auto-tune R&B hook on “The Next Generation,” which just seems strange and out of place.

On Scott Herren’s fifth full-length Prefuse album, we get what might be his most interesting album to date. While One Word Extinguisher still holds up as one of the great breakup albums of all time, I believe this one is destined to become the undiscovered classic of his career. It doesn’t have a clear theme, the title makes you scratch your head, and we zoom through 29 tracks in under 50 minutes as they all blend together into one long sweeping album.

First thing first - Brother Ali is one of the best all around emcees working in hip hop today. His swagger on the stage and on the microphone, combined with his smart and emotional wordplay, along with a great musical sense, and a soulfulness steeped in what’s true to himself combine to make great music that can really touch the listener. This is not to say Ali is perfect, but it is to say that his music is capable in touching me in ways that few can.

Moved old reviews to reviews_old to circumvent google app engine deploy issue where a directory cannot contain more than 1k files. Move these back when we get a chance