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Aug 18, 2022“Sound Ancestors” is a good listen, but if you’re expecting the manic gangster energy of Gibbs or the loquacious lyricism of Dumile, then this isn’t the Madlib project for you. ... I’d definitely call it a Madlib album, but I still don’t know if I’d call it a Four Tet one.
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The WireApr 5, 2021Sound Ancestors is a masterpiece. The 16 pieces not only expand the conversation around the art of sampling, but also further hiphop’s ability to grow as a collaborative Black artform. [Mar 2021, p.54]
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MojoMar 19, 2021Nourishing batch of beat collages. [May 2021, p.88]
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Feb 16, 2021Sound Ancestors is an ideal entry into the world of Madlib.
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Feb 11, 2021Sound Ancestors isn’t anything new from Madlib, but it only further cements his status as one of the great producers, artists, and minds in hip-hop
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Feb 5, 2021While Sound Ancestors as a whole seems as lifetime-encompassing as Donuts, it doesn't feel quite as focused. Still, it sounds recognizably like both Madlib and Four Tet while taking their music into directions where neither artist has ventured before, and its highlights are life-affirming.
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Feb 2, 2021Madlib channels a deep, intertwining lineage of Black music through Sound Ancestors like folklore oration, storytelling with the sorcery of a beatmaker who knows how to make an instrumental really sing.
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Feb 2, 2021Sound Ancestors is a realisation of what the Madlib and Hebden are capable of in tandem. It’s bold, different, and takes the genre of instrumental hip hop to the next level.
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Feb 2, 2021Sound Ancestors is a mixed bag if ever there was one. It's funky, it's psychedelic, it's jazzy, dirty, clean, and mean. It's Madlib.
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Feb 2, 2021Hebden’s arrangement of Sound Ancestors shows deep and intuitive engagement with Jackson’s weed-scented sensibility, which has no use for presumptive distinctions between the beautiful and the funky, the silly and the profound.
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Feb 2, 2021Like Akomfrah’s Data Thief, Madlib sees the connections between the past and future. On Sound Ancestors, he manages to give us a sense of what those connections feel like.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 15 out of 16
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Mixed: 1 out of 16
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Negative: 0 out of 16
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Apr 26, 2021
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Feb 17, 2022
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May 18, 2021