Genre: Hip-Hop
Style: Conscious Rap, Spoken Word
Label Number: 72435-29319-2-7
.FLAC via Florenfile
.AAC 256 kbps via Florenfile
© 2001 The Right Stuff/BMG Direct
And the Word Became Flesh Review by M.F. DiBella
Former Public Enemy controversy starter Professor Griff decided that rap music was wholly bereft of misguided political conjecture, something that he amply provides with this September 2001 recording. Many will remember Griff as Public Enemy's troubled minister of information who supposedly made various anti-Semitic remarks in an interview with the Washington Post in 1989, remarks that eventually led to his expulsion from the group. While Griff's left-wing black nationalism and conspiracy theories hearken back to the heyday of Public Enemy and X Clan, and Griff manages to raise some interesting sociopolitical quandaries, it is tough to distinguish whether his political poetry comes as result of careful research or a combination of propaganda and angry pedantry. Also, Griff's musings are not tied together by a lucid overarching philosophy and his mixture of gangsta rap posturing and potty-mouth spoken word come off sounding like a cross between a second-rate Eazy E and a Gil Scott Heron rip-off. Some legitimacy is lent to the album by an appearance from Last Poet Umar Bin Hassan on "European on Me" and even some genuine attempts at revolutionary rap(virtually unheard) are commendable. However, the erratic philosophies presented amount to "the hate that hate made" and no thoughtful solutions are offered. Griff's railing against the establishment would be better served by less-chaotic production and sloppily constructed poems. Chuck D also appears on the album.
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tags: professor griff, and the word became flesh, 2001, flac,
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tags: professor griff, and the word became flesh, 2001, flac,
