They say you should never judge a book by its cover, but when it comes to hip hop albums the first impression is often pretty accurate. From the bootleg Pen & Pixel cover that Big Bear chose to serve as a warning of what was to come for all potential listeners to Mos Def's contractually obligated True Magic not even bothering with a cover, historically there's been some correlation between the quality of an album cover and the quality of the music found within the album itself. On the flip side, most of the hip hop albums that have attained 'classic' status always seem to have an iconic cover - think of the photo of a young Nas on Illmatic, or KRS-1 channeling Malcolm X for By All Means Necessary. Continuing with that tradition, Mally's latest release, The Passion, features artwork that's a significant upgrade over the covers to his previous albums. Looking about as polished as if it were put together with a major label budget, the hand drawn cover serves as a rather stark indicator that Mally has stepped his game up to the next level with this release.
Foregoing the bloat of unnecessary skits and filler tracks that are too often found on the 20+ song monstrosities that have become the norm for hip hop, The Passion checks in with a tight ten track listing. The decision to keep the length of an album to a minimum carries with it some risk, as many artists don't truly hit their stride until they're a few songs into an album. Mally, though, is in attack mode from the very start, delivering the highlight of the album as soon as the brief intro fades out in the form of a five minute display of his lyrical proficiency on the title track. From there, The Passion delivers forty five minutes of Mally spitting some of the best verses you're likely to hear all year.
If you've heard any of the previous work from Minnesota's finest emcee before, you should know what to expect: introspective joints about his life, his past relationships and his (as yet unrecognized by the mainstream) career, odes to his hometown of Minneapolis and warning shots aimed at the many subpar rappers who have been watering down the game. The difference with The Passion, though, is that Mally's taken everything he's been doing so well up to this point and added just a little more polish to it; gone, for example, is the disdain for hooks that had Mally previously rapping for songs on end without a chorus in sight. The result is an album that should manage to please the true hip hop heads while making enough concessions to, hopefully, get some love from the mainstream.
Pulling the album together with soulful beats that sound every bit as good as any major label release in recent memory, Miami-based producer Mydus once again pads his resume as perhaps the most talented man behind the boards without a deal. Mally's always had a knack for selecting beats, but in the past his penchant for jumping from classic J Dilla cuts to original production has prevented his previous releases from achieving the sense of cohesion that have marked the truly great albums. Handing all of the production duties over to Mydus on The Passion has given the album a consistent feel from start to finish, and again the end result is something that's far more polished and professional than anything Mally has done up to this point.
Having said all that, it's probably belaboring the point to tell you that if you like hip hop, you really need to grab a copy of Mally's The Passion. So go download it right now!
For those of you who need further convincing, here are two of my favorite songs from the album:
Finally, as part of a promo that I've been working on for the album, I asked Mally to share his own thoughts on The Passion. Here's what he had to say:
*The Passion* is my heart and soul, it's everything that I wanted to say about my life after graduating from college. I was in an interesting place when I started writing for this project. I was happy about my last project (The Moment) but I wasn't fully content, I wanted something more. I was searching for a title and a vibe that I knew would put me at a different echelon than many artists from Minnesota. I needed superb production and superb lyrics. I had the lyrics and I knew Mydus had the production -- we had an organic chemistry together and the end result was *The Passion*. In my opinion, people need to hear this album because I am not a gimmick, and I am the savior of Minnesota hip-hop.....I promise!!!
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