John Robinson - The Leak Edition Vol. 2
Label: Shaman Works
Grade: B
Dopeness Percentage: 63%
Highlight: Makings of You
Also Download: The Visionary, Always Bless (Thump Mix), Who? Nose
Overview: John Robinson…a common name for a much more uncommon emcee. You may know him better as Lil Sci from the acclaimed underground group, Scienz of Life. The NYC emcee recently began rockin’ his birth name and plans to “make it cool again.” JR’s musical catalogue dates back to ’96 and he has shared the stage with hip hop’s finest, from The Roots and Common to Mos Def and dead prez. His latest release is The Leak Edition Vol. 2 on the label, Shaman Works Recordings, where as the saying goes, he is not only a client, he is the President. This album is meant to be the prelude to a future release almost entirely produced by MF DOOM.
While most teaser albums fall under the “whatever” category, this album is far from. Guest producers include Madlib (“More Music”), Wale Oyejide (“Action Flick”) and MF Doom(“Expressions”) while notable guest vocalists include Edgar Allen Floe and Invizible Handz. This album is refreshing, purposeful, and soulful at the same time. A number of female collaborators (Tiffany Paige, Farrah Burns, Tash Mahogany) also make this LP extremely melodic for a hip hop joint. The subject matter varies from song to song, but JR manages to combine story telling, introspection and braggadocio into a total package. While it’s nice to hear JR rhyming over a Madlib or DOOM track, a number of lesser known producers (Flying Lotus, I D 4 Windz, K Dubble) provide the albums hottest beats. “Makings of You” sounds like it could blend right in with a Little Brother album, while “JR Meets Invisible Handz” has that spit-fire storytelling that we often relate to Ghostface. “Raw Live” featuring Edgar Allen Floe uses a hot KRS sample to get the message across. There are a few small downsides to the album, but all are relatively nit-picky. “There You Go” featuring Afroditas is a terribly misplaced dancefloor track and songs such as “Grandz” and “Scriptures” could use more boom bap.
JR provides his own choruses for the most part, where some carefully placed samples could add a more distinctive sound to certain tracks. Finally, the songs are short…very short. Many of them time around two and half minutes with no songs going over 4:00. Then again, this album is technically a teaser and it does just that. So even though JR has been around the game for a good decade, this seems like the rebirth for him as a solo artist. The upcoming John Robinson Project should be well worth the wait.
Dopeness Percentage - Takes into account how many dope songs there are compared to tracks on the album. For example, if an album had 14 tracks and 5 of them were dope, you have a Dopeness of 36%.
