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The songs on Us are long--most track in past four minutes--and the album can start to drag during some of the later verses, but as a statement on the health of hip-hop, it's an assured yes that all is well.
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What gives Brother Ali's slice-of-life ruminations their impressive heft is the rapper's eye for everyday detail and the handmade appeal of his vintage-funk arrangements.
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There aren’t any questions about the quality of Us, an album filled with exceptional music; it’s a downright excellent release.
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It's an album that draws its strengths from the simultaneous expression of sympathy toward the people in the songs and anger toward the shit they've gone through.
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This album is so near-flawless it would be easy to go on and on about how you need to hear it as soon as possible.
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Us is uplifting, thought-provoking, funny, heartbreaking, and bootyshaking.
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Us sounds great, with Ali's sensitive, stentorian voice plowing through sleek jazz and blues loops from producer Ant. But the album ends up blandly heavy, weighed down with dark street dramas and lessons about how "the same color blood just pass through our veins."
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The smart tracks build up the complexity of Ali's persona, while the dumb ones diminish it. The juxtaposition of these two different modes creates a fuller exposition than what you'll find on most hip-hop albums.
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Happiness hasn’t blunted his keen social insight, though, as he empathizes with latchkey teens (“Tight Rope”), reflects on friends trapped in the street life (“Slippin’ Away”), and rues slavery’s consequences (“The Travelers”).
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As it stands, Us lies at a precarious crossroads of self-help preaching and black history compendium, succeeding at neither and exposing a serious disconnect between lyricist and producer.
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On Us, his deeply humane new album, that mad-prophet intensity can be exhausting, exhilarating, and downright transcendent.
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The same goes for nearly every cut in this hip-hop opera, a rare work of rap that simultaneously inspires self-confidence and aggravation with the broken world around us.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 21 out of 24
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Mixed: 2 out of 24
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Negative: 1 out of 24
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ArthurSDec 7, 2009Amazing album. Ali makes lyrics that you really can relate to.
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AnthonyMNov 10, 2009
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DaleWOct 30, 2009