It’s up to the emcee in regards to how much they want to show their age—for better or for worse. They could show shining moments of maturity or show evident signs of wear-and-tear. For Masta Ace and Edo.G, it’s not so much about the age as it is about the games started stat in their hip hop column. Both have been around for a long time, and while Ace has more-or-less remained consistent and a perennial pick for one of the dopest emcees ever, Edo.G has had a little bit of a tougher road in terms of being stomped on by hip hop executives and thrown to the side by “true-school” hip hop fans. Surging like a bat outta hell, Ace showed a rejuvenated side to him when dropping Disposable Arts, A Long Hot Summer, and EMC’s The Show, with ALHS being a borderline classic. Edo showed some life, and hey, maybe all that his career needed was that classic production courtesy of Pete Rock and Diamond D on My Own Worst Enemy and a Special Teamz link up via Duck Down for the acclaimed Stereotypez. Now that ya’ll are caught up with their story, there’s no reason to deny Ace and Edo’s collaboration, Arts & Entertainment (A&E), since it is a surprisingly solid release featuring some familiar faces lending some necessary helping hands. Although, A&E isn’t without its fair share of unwanted commercials during it’s usually fine flowing and well executed programming.
“A’s and E’s” is laced with a dope uptempo beat (courtesy of Baby Dooks) for Ace and E to juggle back and forth ever so cool and collectively over. Here Ace distances himself as the obvious stronger emcee of the duo, and E certainly sprints to keep up with the light jog pace of the Masta, then again, most emcees find themselves doing this with Juice Crew familia. However, Edo definitely wins on “Ei8ht is Enough,” produced by Canadian producer and recent Red Bull Big Tune beat battle winner Frank Dukes, which is along the same vein as “Do It Now” from A Long Hot Summer. The two emcees spar back and forth (8 bars at a time), but Edo drops some gems like “you could catch two L’s like your name was James Todd,” or “We getting’ off at the same stop? I could understand the ocean by looking at a rain drop.” The track is a 3 minute slaughterhouse. Straight dopeness.
The production on A&E helps tell the stories that Ace and Edo want to convey, and frankly, two stars emerge on this project even more so than the two men on the mic; M-Phazes and DJ Supreme One. Supreme provides a beautiful melodic backdrop on the ode to the loyal listeners, “Fans,” which features Extra P. The track is a sincere, heartfelt letter from Ace and E to their fanbase explaining how grateful and privileged they are to still be rocking. Supreme comes even harder on the oh-so-soulful “Reminds Me,” and Ace matches the harmonic production with equally dope retrospective rhymes: “Ya’ll remind me of sheep/when I play it in my Jeep/ ya’ll put me to sleep like car fumes,” and despite his distaste for certain hip hop acts, he maintains that “hip hop’s not dead, there’s a little hope here.” Phazes hooks them up, big time, including the album’s stand out, “Little Young.” Edo and Ace go back and forth and question all the rappers with Lil’ or Young in their names. And one can’t help but see where Ace is coming from when he says “when you say Young Chris, I’m thinking Criminal Minded.” And “Over There” is another silky smooth production, allowed A&E to once again wax on it as they pleased.
The album contains a few features, most of them welcomed. The Posdnuos feature on “Good Music” is the climax of the joint, where as the KRS-One feature on “Pass the Mic” provides a fierce and hungry verse from the timely veteran. Chester French on the album’s biggest stinker, “Dancing Like A White Girl,” is unnecessary and obviously unneeded and silly. In fact, the last quarter of the album is remarkably slow, due in part to another over-abundance of skits and skippable tracks. “Round and Round” is the typical touring track, but Ace already did this on A Long Hot Summer, in a much more entertaining way, too, if you may. Although E’s radio station shoutouts are welcomed.
The album’s concept, similar to previous Ace albums, is pretty simple and more or less captures a situation and the CD develops as the situation does. Here, a family is watching BET or other TV stations and eating snacks. So, it’s really whack when the listener hits a streak of three or four dope tracks, and then gets interrupted, only to come back on track and get interrupted again by the skits. And for this, this album should be penalized, simply because albums can have skits and be done without being this annoying.
Nevertheless, given the talent these two emcees possess, one can’t help but feel that there was a little bit of a doubt that this album could live up to the names on it. And not to say that these two guys are slouches on the microphone, but their deliverance and persistence throughout the album was remarkable. A&E dug in deep and pulled out some hip hop tricks to slap over the heads of these wacky impersonators who call themselves rappers. Still, obviously Arts & Entertainment is not without particular flaws, especially ones that take away from the enjoyment and general experience of great music. But, there is something comforting, refreshing, and reassuring hearing Ace and Edo rap the way that they are rapping. With such emphasis on the younger, “freshmen class” of cats, the usually consistent and seasoned veterans attack surprisingly, providing that much more of a blast when the lyrics hit.
77/100
Little Young
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Fans
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Ei8ht is Enough
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
{ 19 comments… read them below or add one }
Good review Deez on a good album.
guys, excuse any small grammar mistakes. I will re-read for ANOTHER 20th time and see. But it seems like everytime I come back to proof read this, I’m not thinking straight.
Tough review to write.. but I gave the album enough quality listens. The score may be misleading though. I can’t see myself revisiting this as much as I’d like to
great review sean..loved the traxx that you listed..
little young is funny and poignant..
Score should be higher but dope review regardless. I like this much more than Fashawn & Sha Stimuli, which received higher scores.
I really wanted to like this album, but like Deez, I had a hard time listening to it. The standout tracks are great, but as an album there was just too much filler. The skits were really distracting too.
I thought the skits were amusing. The only wack joint to me is the joint w/ Chester French. Production is top notch too.
I agree with Kevin and Sean. . .I was expecting more than this. Little Young is still dope though.
Glad to see this album on here – although I would’ve liked to see a higher ranking / 100. I felt like this was a dope release, during a year of dope releases! I’d never heard Edo.G but grabbed the iTunes download off the strength of a few tracks on sites like this I heard, and I’d heard of Masta Ace anyway, but this album is much better than I expected when it was announced. my favorite tracks are “Little Young” & “Eight is Enuff,” but I liked almost the whole disc.
http://www.wydublog.com/2009/11/e-arts-entertainment.html
I did a review too
i dont think its a classic but its pretty “fun” album. I love masta ace, that dude is incredible! 2 OG’s on the same disc. Id say its pretty fair review maybe an 80/100
The review is solid as always! I think it is difficult to give it an overall rating like 77 or 69. It depends on the criteria you consider. However, Deez and Kevin already said it, it is hard listening to the album as a whole. As much as one enjoys the highlights (little young, over there, ei8ht is enough and a few others), the more difficult it gets when it comes to the rest of the songs. The fact that I really do like both rappers, not only in terms of dope verses but also in terms of being able to relate to the (music business) struggle they went through, my first judgement was pretty “soft-gloved” as i definitely wanted the album to be dope throughout. Nevertheless, after realizing that i had to skip a lot of the songs and skits to make the listening experience enjoyable, I came to the conclusion, that the album is by far not as good as i expected it to be…what really keeps this album alive are the few really good songs and of course the lyrical ability of both emcees!
Maybe M-Phazes should have produced the whole album
…because similar to Royce’s album, where there is obviously no need to talk about the lyrics, the album lacks dope beats. dope beats these two could have easily gotten their hands on…anyway….maybe it was what they felt at the moment was right…
@Vatkeezy: the difference to Fashawn is that Boy meets world is an harmonic album. I can’t think of one song right now that doesn’t make sense in the overall context of the album. Maybe the standout tracks are not as bangin’ as little young, however, there are no songs that fall off!!…you do get the feeling of listening to a real album that took time to create, rather than listening to a few good songs and having to skip the rest.
Still, i don’t think it is a bad album, nor do i want to criticize artists that i have a lot of respect for. But as a Dj and true rap fan, one of the biggest pleasures in life is to listen to a great new album by your favorite artists…be it veterans or rookies…i.e. my expectations are generally high when good artists like these 2 release an album…unfortunately not all of them do meet the expectations….best example Royce with his recent LP…
good review..i was also expecting more from this project..still a good cd..never been a fan of skits
No offense but you are guys putting way too much weight on the skits. If you don’t ilke em, skip em, what’s the big deal. I still haven’t heard anyone criticize any of the songs aside from the Chester French joint.
well, if they are trying to craft an album with a concept to it, the skits are pretty important.
if that’s the case, to just skip em, then we shouldn’t penalize bad songs on an album ,since we can just skip em. For the most part, the last quarter of the album, as the review says is somewhat slow and skippable.
Come on Deez, don’t equate bad skits with bad songs, you know it’s not the same thing. There’s plenty of dope albums with bad skits.
I couldn’t get past the first song.
Ace’s skits are usually crazy though, like how he uses them to tie together songs to form concept albums. On this one, not so much.
The dude above is straight up hating
@hotbox
Please go to this link
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMP__WRvv1Y
and straight to 2:56 in the video.
This will give you my answer to “the dude above is straight up hating.”
Good Album from these 2!
However I must say, I feel salty as hell that I didn’t get my tracks on here with my main dudes Edo & Ace. I was supposed to be on this LP with my production, and I was dragging my feet due to personal stuff.
I won’t miss or disappoint next time!
This won’t be the last you heard from Diaz Millenia….hahahahaha
Good Work though, and great review!