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REVIEW:
Overall Rating:
 
Lyrics:
Beats:
Written By:
The Reccollectah
I always
felt very ambiguous towards the Inspektah : on one hand you
have the amazing, promising MC we all loved straight away
who simply blew us away with legendary verses on Wu Tang
classics and on the other hand you have the General who
somehow kept failing expectations with his solo albums. I
always thought it was an incredible shame Deck never really
could consolidate his street rep an an MC on a classic solo
venture of his own . Instead somehow he seemed to
singlehandedly destroy that same rep as each consecutive
album just disappointed even more .
Just look at his discography so far as I try to summarize
them in one word each:
Uncontrolled Substance ( Wu-Light ), The Movement (
mediocre), Resident Patient ( awful), Resident Patient 2 /Myspace
freestyles (crap) , …
And now that I listened to “Manifesto” repeatedly last week
, the one word that comes to my mind is … COMEBACK !!
Yes,
people: it seems that after all these years Rollie Fingers
finally crafted his own style to perfection. Where in the
past Deck ‘s choice of beats was disappointing or just
straight annoying , this time around Deck realized he had to
stop messing about and really go for it. He still has a love
for the more funky/soulful stuff or for the more modern type
of beats but this time he didn’t settle for anything less
than quality … which is always something to be appreciated,
I reckon.
And I get the impression Deck also realizes he struck gold
this time, calling his new album “Manifesto”. This is (
besides a rarely used alias, check ‘Killa Beez’ on The
Sting) indeed Deck’s manifesto saying : “Here I am people,
more confident than ever . I’m bringing my A-level game to
the table so you’d better count me back in now !” And back
he is, tossing out his entire production team from previous
albums , which finally gives a solid album from start till
finish.
To be honest it took me some effort to get into it though:
after a first listen I thought he messed it up again but was
somehow still enough intrigued by what I had heard to find
myself listening to it over and over again. Maybe I was too
biased after the Myspace freestyles disaster compilation ?
Luckily each listening session peeled off more and more
layers of my initial “disappointment” till I realized this
is nothing but a triumphant return to form from Mr
Manifesto.
Even though we only find very few Wu features ( Rae and
Cappa) on here and no Wu productions ( except the ones INS
did himself) , Manifesto presents us a versatile and very
nutritious platter . Production is topnotch ( especially
Deck himself brings us his finest production work to date) ,
the features are kept minimal but on point ( Kurupt, Billy
Danze, Planet Asia, Cormega, Housegang affiliates even hold
it up this time ) … Hell, even Obama comes on point on “Born
Survivor “ and be it sampled from a speech , he still sounds
impressive over the beat. ( Come to think of it: gives a
whole new meaning to “Presidential MC’s” ) . And best news
saved for last: lyrically, INS sounds revitalized, confident
( “hip hop is fallin' apart, Deck, he's the glue” ) and
determined to show he still has it.
Whether you prefer grimey beats ( “PSA”, “9th Chamber Pt
II”) , the funk/soul tracks Deck seems to have perfected (
“This is it”,Luv Letter”,”T.R.U.E.”) , experimental stuff (“
The big game”: a similarly surprising outsider as Masta
Killa’s title track from No Said Date back in the day or “5
Star G”: that flute , omg !!! ) or just plain dopeness on
wax (“The champion”, “ Serious rappin’ “, “Gotta bang”) …
you’ll find it all on this little masterpiece. With
“Manifesto” we finally get a consistent Inspectah Deck
album, one everyone can enjoy . Mission accomplished, now
show the man some support .
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