MIND INVERSION

I say this all the time but, I feel so great being from Minnesota because Minneapolis is a mad music machine that keeps churning out great homeland talent. Toki Wright is a perfectly prime example of what I previously stated. I’ve seen Toki at just about every Hip-Hop event I’ve ever been to in Minneapolis, so for that reason alone he will always be a pivotal stamp in Twin Cities Hip-Hop. I got the chance to see Toki at this year’s Soundset, and I was very impressed when I saw him perform his solo material. His new album, A Different Mirror, is a great example of a hungry emcee deliberately devouring the microphone on every track. The beats on this album accent Toki’s violent and vicious flow perfectly, and Toki’s witty wordplay is highly infectious.

When Toki starts spitting on “More Fiya”, you know that you are about to hear a great album with passion pouring out all over the place. Every time that Toki flows on a track you can hear the vicious venom in his voice ring out like a shotgun blast. Benzilla lays down a nice low tempo beat full of slow rolling guitar loops and beautiful horns on the track “Good”, not to mention that Toki’s flows accent the beat perfectly, “My repertoire for settin’ off is extra large/your steppin’ to the upper echelon…”. As you go through this album is that Toki’s flow is much like a chameleon, he can switch up his style to fit the environment no matter what the case. I think the title track, “A Different Mirror”, has a super dope beat (maybe one of the best on the album) and Toki rattles off rhymes like it’s nobody’s business. The track does a great job of showing that all though some things seem to be great, there is always another side to the story. Toki brings along Scarub of the Freestyle Fellowship Living Legends on the track “Rise”, and Toki spits one of my favorite rhymes on the album, “As the bricks and cement try to close us in, put us in the penn where the pen is our only friend/spent every sent on the rent/pull the lint out the in-seam, dreams are the things that we need…”. Mr. Wright literally tells you why he’s the “Next Big Thing” on the track of the same name. On the hook he sings, “I don’t really care what you heard this year/but the next best thing is standin’ right here…” and boasts about the dues he’s paid, “Done a lot of rap shows/scratched a little cash flow/playin’ with so many toy soldiers call me Hasbro…”. He also addresses people calling him a hype man, “I read an article that said I’m a hype man/I ain’t no hype man, fucka’ I’m a live band”.

I didn’t pick a clear cut favorite out on this album because it flows together very well (maybe “The Feeling” Feat. Brother Ali, but not clear cut). All of the tracks on this album are of great quality and if you live in the Midwest, it’s definitely something you shouldn’t sleep on. Rhymesayers Entertainment picked one hell of an artist to Spotlight for this project. It won’t be long before Toki Wright is a household name for Midwest Hip-Hop with outings like this. Be sure to watch out for more by Toki Wright.

8.5 Minneapolis Microphones out of 10

This entry was posted on Monday, July 13, 2009 at 10:07 pm and is filed under Music Reviews with tags A Different Mirror, Benzilla, Brother Ali, minneapolis, Rhymesayers Entertainment, Scarub, Soundset, toki wright. 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.