Another dispatch from a realm where the austere funk of the new breed of mainstream producers has completely failed to make its presence felt. Here, funk loops roll along on lazy jazz cymbals and double bass lines as the cross fader works from left to right. The title might better be, 'RememberRememberRemember' so desperately does this album implore the listener to recall a time when hip-hop was all about XXXL t-shirts not XO Cognac.
El recalls his former glories at every opportunity. As one-half of the Artifacts, he was briefly deified as an unholder of hip-hop's sacred elements (the Artifacts were respected graffitti writers from New Jersey who pumped out backpack anthems with the help of 90s heroes like Buckwild and Redman). Frequent skits focus on soundbites from 'real' hip-hop heads, stopped and asked to enthuse about a time when the sun shone all day as they flicked through the racks of Fat Beats to a soundtrack of 'C'mon Wit Da Git Down' and 'Wrong Side Of Da Tracks'. Like a lover who can't quite accept it's over, El pours over his past but fails to move on.
There's no doubt that this is one backpacker with impeccable taste. Bedroom legends like J Rawls of Lone Catalysts and Sean J. Period are brought in to produce whilst peerless microphone contributions come from heavyweights like Sadat X, J-Live and Pharoahe Monch. The result is a fine, nostalgic chunk of hip-hop that will happily transport you to a realm that may or may not mean a damn thing to you but certainly sounds good. In fact, time grants El Da Sensei the opportunity to learn from his mistakes. So, where the Artifacts were a great singles act that never really found the variety to engage across an entire album, El now injects much needed variety into the set.
The exhortation that El is "'Bout to change the whole game..." seems a little far fetched but 'RelaxRelateRelease' begins to sound like a breath of fresh air against a backdrop of standard issue Neptunes beats and P Diddy remixes.
