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Sample Track 1:
"Success" from Afropolitan Dreams
Sample Track 2:
"Make You No Forget ft. Seun Kuti" from Afropolitan Dreams
Layer 2
Album Review

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Sonic Discourse, Album Review >>

What makes the human condition so awesome is the individuality of expression of emotions. In this case, frustration is one that comes to mind. Different things frustrate us but there’s often a common thread that links back to common problems a lot of us face. If we’re lucky, this boils into something productive like personal success or something enjoyable like art. TakeYeezus, an album that brought Kanye West’s frustration to life. What made that album such an emotional marvel is that a lot of what he said was and wasn’t relatable, but he’s masterful in conveying those emotions sonically. It’s the type of emotional urgency you see come out when he talks more than his demanor rapping. Accra-born, New York-based rapper and visual artist Blitz the Ambassador comes off frustrated for the trials an tribulations of being a Ghanian-American artist. What makes Afropolitan Dreams succeed, however, is that it’s less about telling its unique selling proposition and more about showing it.

Whether he’s rubbing elbows with international stars, singing, spitting out machine like flows talking about bringing younger relatives to Africa or his rent check is bouncing Blitz lives with conviction through this music. This is an album that’s just as informed by Expensive Shit as it was by It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back and those influences meet at such a masterful intersection that Blitz postulates something to the effect that this is enough to incense or disinterest hip-hop heads and world music fans alike. But the Afrobeat production, African drumming patterns, scratching and hip-hop drums are all killer here, complementing what the mouthful that Blitz has to say.

Furthermore, he finds a great supporting cast here. International all-stars like Seun Kuti and Angelique Kidjo glisten on this album, making the songs more hard hitting, but also more fun to listen to at times. And with more features piled toward the back of this album, this album feels like Blitz taking steps back from his journey, retracing the sounds of New York all the way back to the music of Africa. However, the entire album feels natural and lived in. Even the bits of funk and soul that are peppered in Afropolitan‘s hip-hop-to-Afrobeat transition. This is a very in touch album and the best album dealing in black political rage since R.A.P. Music and the best album about life as an immigrant since Gogol Bordello stumbled into accidental fame in the mid-aughts. Afropolitan Dreams is of hip-hop classic quality.


Blitz- I am DEFINITELY pulling some of those quotes!!
"This is an album that’s just as informed by Expensive Shit as it was by It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back"
" Afropolitan Dreams is of hip-hop classic quality"

 05/14/14 >> go there
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