MIND INVERSION

Finale is an emcee from the city of Detroit, Michigan who magnificently marvels me when he flows over the microphone. He has a voice that’s like a cross between 50 Cent and Kanye West (if I had to say) except for he’s much mightier than the aforementioned names. If you don’t know who Finale is, you probably should get familiar. This is an outstanding opus and a great entrance into the world of Hip-Hop that should be heard by all.

People that know me well know that when it comes to albums, production (to me) is a big determining factor on how I feel. The production on this album is nothing short of incredible and sets the tone of the album. If this was an instrumental album of just beats, I can assure you that I would give it an 8 or 9 alone. I remember seeing the production list and being amazed (J Dilla, Black Milk, Nottz, Flying Lotus & Khrysis to name a few), but what really surprises me more is that the lesser known producers craft concoctions that are just as good as the rest.

With the previouly mentioned information, it made me kind of scared to listen to this album because cats like Medaphoar have dragged a greatly produced album down. With Finale however, that isn’t even close to the case. Finale molds his flow to the beat like he was playing with putty on every track of this album. It doesn’t matter how slow or fast the tempo of the beat is, he rides the beat like a car on blacktop the whole time and it’s very smooth. The thing that is apparently clear is that Finale feels at home on the beat no matter who produced it. Pretty close to every track on this album is great.

The highlight to me though, is the final track on the album produced by Flying Lotus entitled “Paid Homage”. Many of you may have heard the Flying Lotus tribute to Dilla’s classically produced “Fall In Love” (which in my opinion is beautiful). That song, is the backdrop for “Paid Homage” in which Finale spontaneously spits in “homage” to one of the greatest producers of all-time, J Dilla. “Paid Homage” is one of my favorite tracks that I’ve heard so far this year, and is a great tribute to an even greater human being.

All in all this album is fantastic. The only thing that really makes it drag are the skits that are on the album. I think more often than not you will find yourself skipping to the next song to avoid overly long interludes (even though they are insightful). I can assure you, though, that the skits don’t greatly affect the quality of this album. I highly recommend that you grab this album if you like Hip-Hop music at all.

9 blazingly blistering beats out of 10

This entry was posted on Monday, May 11, 2009 at 2:04 pm and is filed under Music Reviews with tags Black Milk, Detroit Hip-Hop, Finale, Flying Lotus, J Dilla, Khrysis, Nottz. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.