Album Description: Lateef & The Chief, a.k.a. Maroons, are Lateef The Truth Speaker, one half of the critically acclaimed Latyrx, and Chief Xcel, Blackalicious' musical mastermind. On this collaboration, they turn battle rhymes into statements of peace and celebrate survival, solidarity, and the sistas. Afrodiasporic beats effortlessly bring together jazz, samba, charanga, dub, and funk through hip-hop and fluid whirlwind rhymes rippling with metaphors and ideas.
Amazon.com: Maroons borrow from two of Quannum's best-known groups, pairing Blackalicious producer Chief Xcel with Latyrx's chatterbox Lateef. Though the two have worked together many times before, the focused collaboration on this nine-song effort helps to reinforce each artist's strength. Compared to the more mellow beats that Xcel often concocts for Blackalicious, the production on Ambush is more energetic, even aggressive at times. You hear that most explosively on the funk bomb "Lester Hayes," but even the slick, disco-flavored "Don't Stop" benefits from this more vigorous approach. Likewise, Lateef's mercurial sing-song flow gets a thorough workout, swinging a more seductive lilt on "Beautiful You" while hitting a brisk pace for "Best of Me" (which also features Xcel's Blackalicious partner Gift of Gab). Though clocking in at less than 40 minutes, this offering is still more than a sufficient tease of what new experiments Quannum might produce down the road. --Oliver Wang
Good but not for me. I can see why people really enjoy this album. Its well produced and has good flow. But there's a quality to the delivery that is distracting to me. Its the same problem i have with Jurassic 5. I think its safe to say that if you like J5 grab this, you'll like it. But if you find them curiously annoying you will find this album annoying in the same way.
This is Quannum Quality This album is the pinical of quannum quality, and I love em all. Gab, pigeon john,lyrics born, latryx, blackalicious, aspci, g elec, so on. I can see how some might see a few of the tracks as weak, but know that I disagree. People have higher expectations of concious rappers (as they should) but when they throw out a few fun tracks, like "dont stop" (which I feal has a positive message, although not political) people dismiss them as "duds". Enjoy the music!!! Enoy Xcel! This cat dominates as much if not more on this album. As far as Lateef.. you would be hard pressed to find a more enjoyable mc. Don't be suprised if he plays a bigger role in the next Blackalicious album, or drops another Maroons album that surpasses this one.
one of quannum's best i bought this when it first came out and i decided that it's about time to write a review.
first of all, the beats on this are SUPERB! when i say that i mean that these are the best beats i've ever heard Xcel do. lateef's flow is dope as hell on this. a lot of people have said that they think it's a little weak, but i just think it's really minimalist, which fits so perfectly with the whole album.
secondly, this is not blackalicious. don't compare it to them, it's a totally different beast. it's strange, but, i would rather listen to ambush more often than any blackalicious album. probablly because this is FUN music.
when i saw lateef and gab tour when they were in boston they talked about how this was just a glimpse into what maroons were going to be doing in the future. at the show they said that a new one was gonna drop this past summer (it's february now and i haven't heard any news about that). i really can't wait for a full length cause i'm sure that it's gonna be dope as hell.
just ok the album is just ok. i was really excited seeing as it was lateef and the chief but its short. just ten song with 2 complete duds and one song that is less than 2 minutes long. joyo has a beautiful voice and gift of gab isnt as good as he is with blackalicious and 4th dimensional but they definetly complement the album
wish i could rate it higher because its quannum and almost everything they do is 5 stars but this album was to short and inconsistent. the only songs that live up to my high expectations are 3,4,6,8,9.5 songs isnt enough for 5 stars. check the rest of quannums release, most are better
Quality packed This is one of those albums that only has 10 tracks, but every track is high quality. So it's a quick listen and when your done you want to keep it close so you can listen again. The beats on this album are so on point they stab you, it's incredible and will deff put you in Neck Mode. The other thing I like about this album is it has a different feel to it than the majority of stuff out there now. I hadn't heard of this group but then once I read who it was I knew it would be good - and it's better than I even expected. Well worth the $$ to purchase this album.
Anything Goes Trivia
Megaton Man
Tailipoe
Trevor
