I feel like Jean Grae's one of the most authentic artists in hip-hop, and either because of that or something closely tied to that she'll never make an album as good as less authentic artists. But damn, she can spit, and her individual songs are awesome. As the album went on I felt like I was getting an increasingly complete portrait of her as a person, and a much more upbeat portrait than her debut presented. I get into such a nice groove listening to her monotone for long stretches, which the guests throw off, so I wish she had kept those just in the EP part of it, especially since they increasingly hogged the spotlight towards the end, which felt like it should've been her time to shine. My only complaint about her rapping is sometimes I get the sense she thinks her lines are more profound or clever than they really are, like she'll hype up something she's just said or is about to say and I'll spend awhile with the music paused trying to figure out what it was about that that was supposed to impress me so much before concluding that there's nothing there I didn't get the first time around. On the other hand, maybe she's a genius and it's just all over my head.
Choice cuts: Code Red, High, You Don't Know
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