Madlib Medicine Show No. 11 - Low Budget High Fi Music

by Madlib

So much of the Madlib Medicine Show took Madlib away from his hip-hop roots, and while I would never complain about an artist branching out, it's nice to see him return to form with this dirty hip-hop mix featuring all new compositions that he produced.

This disc has twenty-eight tracks, and features a vast array of the usual artists Madlib works with, including Oh No (together they are The Professionals), Roc C, Guilty Simpson, AG, Frank Nitt, Strong Arm Steady, Karriem Riggins (together they are Supreme Team), MED, and J Dilla (who produced what has to be the last Jaylib track).

The vocal tracks are interspersed between some nice 'Loop Digga' instrumental tracks, and we have the usual array of sampled conversations and comedy snippets, including a much too long piece featuring Soul Bra and Doctor Dick'em, which isn't all that funny the first time it's heard, and becomes progressively more irritating on each subsequent listen.

In all though, this is a very good mix of music, as Madlib once again makes some boring MCs (Guilty, MED, Roc C) sound great, and helps some terrific artists (Riggins, Oh No) become even better.

In Search of Stoney Jackson

by Strong Arm Steady

I've never had much interest in Strong Arm Steady, thinking of them as the type of group that show up on mixtapes with artists I like and I can't tell why, and generally as trying to ride Talib Kweli's coattails since he signed them to Blacksmith a few years ago. Sure, they can sound good when featured on a song or two, but they weren't the type of artists I thought could pull off a whole album. Then I saw that their album was going to exclusively feature Madlib production, so of course I bought it...

And I was more or less right - the actual group (Krondon, Phil da Agony, and according to Wikipedia someone named Mitchy Slick) are not particularly interesting when they are rapping on their own. Their subject matter never strays far from weed it seems, although they do manage to sound consistent and let provide a decent enough use of Madlib's very cool beats.

What saves this album (beyond some great Madlib production of course) are guest appearances by Phonte (it's not a good sign when you have a guest on your first track), Talib Kweli, Evidence, Oh No, Fashawn, Guilty Simpson, and enough appearance by Planet Asia he must wonder if he really did leave the group. There are other guests too; in fact, it looks like there are only four tracks where SAS is on their own, which doesn't seem like a sign of confidence in an artist.

This is a decent album, don't get me wrong. It's just not very memorable...