Gift of Gab: Escape 2 Mars

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The Gift of Gab is most well known as the lead member of the bay-area hip hop group, Blackalicious.  Now I’ll be honest, when I first heard the name of the group 4 years ago I was initially turned off thinking that this was an overly Afro-centric (I hate whitey) type of group.  I could not have been more wrong as throughout their 3 full albums, 2 EPs, numerous mixtape appearances and different incarnations of the group with different members, their music has continuously delivered a refreshingly positive message; deferring from using lyrics about guns and slangin’ and instead telling a stories of selflessness and self-improvement.

However, do not take this positivity to represent cheesy “rah rah” raps.  The Gift of Gab is a true lyricist who is not afraid to take risks and has somehow managed to stay somewhat below the national radar despite the fact that (in my opinion of course) he should be in everyone’s top 5 “greatest rapper list”.  Maybe it’s his overwhelming willingness to take risks and do experimental projects and maybe it’s the fact that he’s from the Bay-area (a musically rich area in the hip hop scene, yet one that has had problems expanding outside the region), but for one reason or another he seems to be one of THE most under-rated rappers on the scene right now (#1 being MF DOOM, but that’s for another post).

Escape 2 Mars is The Gift of Gab’s 2nd solo album and another prime example of his willingness to take chances.  The resulting product is a bit of a concept album with a bunch of hits and only a couple (near) misses.  As Gift himself explains, “People are gonna think this is about Martians, but it’s not,” Gab explains. “It’s more so about taking care of the planet we’re on. We might have to escape to Mars or somewhere else if we keep taking the planet we live on for granted.”

I think that one of the first things that you’ll notice about the album is the way he is able to continuously switch-up his cadence in a way that showcases his verbal dexterity and (unlike most rappers) is not restricted to a specific “style”.   As an example, listen to the first single off the album, “El Gifto Magnifico” and then right after, check out “Rhyme Travel” …it doesn’t even sound like the same artist.  Another thing about this album is that Gift doesn’t rely heavily on big name guest artists to put together a great product.  In fact, the only track to feature guest appearances at all is the DNAEBEATS-produced (as all the tracks are) “Dreamin”, which features hip-hop veterans Del tha Funky Homosapien and Brother Ali.

Overall, I would say that this is a very good album (the over-synthesized “Electric Waterfalls” keeps it from being great) and as there are so many good songs you should probably save some money and download the whole album instead of paying by the track.  It is very refreshing to see an artist with the lyrical abilities that The Gift of Gab possesses and even more impressive that he continuously challenges himself to come up with relevant and positive content.

udothedishes…

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