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Aug 9, 2013It’s not sanctimony that drags the album down so much as lack of focus, both lyrical and aesthetic. Coursing between the ham-fisted message-moments is a nimble and reliably engaging display of verbal dexterity.
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The SourceJul 2, 2013Despite everything he did right on this album, there are a few blemishes. [Jul 2013, p.88]
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Jun 11, 2013POC is a step above his worst material and a far cry from his glory days.
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May 24, 2013The standout beats have some old-school crackle and POC is most interesting when Kweli can relax and just, you know, be brilliant.
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MojoMay 20, 2013Dogged by sub-standard productions and uneasy alliances, it's left to the RZA and Madlib's younger brother Oh No to partially save his bacon. [Jun 2013, p.89]
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May 16, 2013On Prisoner of Conscious Kweli once again is working against that way of thinking by adopting unlikely styles, expanding his musical palette and collaborating with folks that people might not expect him to.
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May 13, 2013At the heart of all is Talib Kweli’s impressively nimble rapping, with its rat-a-tat cadence and intricate rhyme-play.... But this album also falls prey to facile cosmopolitanism.
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Q MagazineMay 13, 2013He seems content to occupy the same '90s underground niche he's always done. [Jun 2013, p.90]
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May 10, 2013For all of its powerful lyricism, Prisoner Of Conscious is not a particularly dynamic listen.
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May 9, 2013A few forgettable collaborations and sing-by-number hooks aside (the usually spirited Seu Jorge sounds especially enervated on “Favela Love,” which languishes until a jaunty guitar riff revives it well after the four-minute mark), many of the guest verses on the record pleasantly surprise.
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May 8, 2013This is certainly his most sonically diverse album ever.
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May 8, 2013Instead of updating his sound and style for a contemporary audience, Prisoner of Conscious comes off as a series of half measures.
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May 7, 2013His ability to craft and tell stories in a captivating way has not gone unnoticed, and while Prisoner Of Conscious will not go down as his best album, it does display how versatile of an artist he is.
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May 6, 2013More than any of his previous albums, Prisoner of Conscious is the sound of Kweli performing art for art's sake, hip-hop for the sake of hip-hop, with hardly a homily to be found.
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May 6, 2013The off-topic and amazing "Hamster Wheel" is here, and when that's added to all the other highlights, the album is well above worthwhile, as scattershot and frustrating as it is.
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May 6, 2013This isn’t a concept, or a wild divergence from his earlier work. Rather it’s a bigger push musically and collaboratively with less emphasis on the politics that have dominated his past.
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May 6, 2013Prisoner is marred by weak analogies (“colder than Minnesota,” “buzz like Georgia Tech) and Kweli’s bumpy writerliness (“ornithology” and “onomatopoeia” are just two less-than-melodious words used here), leading this to be his most underwhelming record yet word-for-word.
User score distribution:
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Positive: 7 out of 12
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Mixed: 5 out of 12
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Negative: 0 out of 12
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Jun 18, 2013
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May 7, 2013
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May 7, 2013