Still aware of how thoroughly I dismissed Raising Hell, an album PE's Chuck D himself once called the greatest rap album off all time. But I stand by it, maybe even more so once I heard how much better, in every way, this album is. I know it came 4 years later. Sure, you need a foundation to build a house, but is it my fuckup if I like the house better than the slab? The house is nice to live in, and full of artistic flourishes and courtyards and scones and shit. The foundation's just real sturdy and made of concrete. You hit the limit of what you can say about it real fast.
This, here's where the payoff's at. This is smart as shit, with beats that aspire to actually move your ass and mind and succeed on all counts. Each and every count. Success. This is on the shoulders of giants, but it climbs swift, stands firm, jumps high and backflips. It's fucking packed, packed, with clever, insightful, provocative moments, hurtling by you at mach holyfach.
The production's double-dense and officially awesome as hell. The rapping takes those end of lines and explodes them, doubling up the cappers, breaking out into bum bum bum tripleups, hairpins conclusions into roundabouts and doubleback counterpoint. I don't know where exactly rap became awesome, but it was some time between Raising Hell and righthere 4.5/5
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