Ian Kamau is an emotion. As you listen to the mixtape it sucks you into a world where, anxieties, frustration, surety, confusion and resolution live all at once. There is joy there also, and sincere friendship. There is a love for the black nation and an imagination that is too real to ignore.
'Majority report' sounds like it should have been the hip hop anthem for the election of President Barack Obama.'hipsters sniffin coke now/ is change still coming?' Can you answer that question? Maybe you can maybe you can't but it's the asking in Kamau's September Nine that is important. In one of my favourite tracks 'Maybe' he asks am I crazy? A question I believe that we all have asked ourselves at some point in time on life's sometimes unclear path. The strange thing is I believe Kamau has the answers to the questions that he is asking himself and the listener, but it is not pretense but thought provocation that is the intention.
'Say it ain't so' is the heart of this well crafted character of a project. This heart beats with emotions rarely visited in hip hop music '/I miss you mama!' beats almost every line that I've heard from any hip hop past 1996. The story seems of growin pains and the emotional effects of them. This track is not to be skipped.
'April fools', is a jazzy uptempo track that really should not be missed on the porches of anywhere that hip hop lives and the sun is hot. It's my video of the day right now on my blog. I love the shout outs he gives on that track to people that you may not hear about in your mainstream media because they are in no way cookie cutter, but they are still sharp as razors. Love the shout out to black people [snickers] who does that? classic stuff.
The album... :) I mean mixtape ends like a good movie that keeps things open for a sequel but you're not sure if they'll ever make a sequel because they're into the art not the money. Though the money comes. Perhaps his upcoming album September Nine dropping on 09.09.09 will be not a continuation of the mixtape but another good movie by a genius director.
Get this mixtape, you owe it to yourself
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