2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Virtually Unclassifiable, Underground Hip-Hop, November 28, 2005
This review is from: Father Divine (Audio CD)
"Father Divine" is both a love letter to Mike Ladd's past and to the history of ROIR records. Ladd is one of underground/experimental hip-hop's most politically charged voices, while ROIR is best know for releasing innovative Dub records as well as issuing the finest first generation hard core album, Bad Brains self titled debut from 1982. Ladd lets his guard down for the first time to wax poetic about his own past, which coincidentally references the era and music that made ROIR a household name.
An invigorating mix of spacey dub, seventies funk, eighties big-beat electro, old school hip-hop and even early Prince, "Father Divine" is Ladd's most lyrically accessible and sonically enjoyable album to date. "Barney's Girl" finds Ladd reminiscing about a long lost love over a soulful vibe, while "Awful Raw" is a heady mix of sampled Bollywood horns and gritty, bhangra flavored hip-hop. Ladd's closest flirtation with pop music arrives in "Murder Girl," which comes off like a spunky, lo-fi Prince tune. Peppered with numerous instrumental dub and electronic meditations, the album is awash in cultural collisions. His collaborators include frequent partner, jazz keyboardist Vijay Iyer, Priest from Antipop Consortium, Jaleel Bunton from TV on the Radio and producer Gymkhana, a new face on the scene.
Borrowing the album title from the adopted name of a charismatic, self-styled preacher from the Depression-era, Ladd delivers his pronouncements with the same authority befitting an outcast leader. Widely considered the first example of a religious cult, Father Divine's Peace Mission is used here by Ladd as an example of the power of self-myth. One of Ladd's best records and one of underground hip-hop's better albums this year, "Father Divine" is not to be missed.
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