Dilated Peoples give us another album that's similar to their first album. More of the same, hoping for good beats, and getting the traditional emceeing from Evidence and Iriscience. It has its fair share of great songs, but again, you have to filter some garbage, and when the beat is just okay, the rapping probably wont' convert you into liking it.
If you need any further proof that Directors of Photography is trapped in a temporal loop, consult the Brother Ali and Dice Raw name-drops in its first minute. From that moment forward, it’s business as usual, just with tighter beats and knottier wordplay than on past releases. The album knows what it is, and at no point does it try to be anything else. It simply decides to double down on old tropes for solidarity’s sake. Evidence’s deadpan delivery is perfect for what feels like rote recitations from a rap handbook, and together with Rakaa’s even-tempered disposition, the two trade bars that are as sharp as any you’ll hear this year. “Let Your Thoughts Fly Away” and “Cut My Teeth” showcase alliteration, internal rhyme, and a nostalgic brand of multisyllabic scheming.
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“Hazmat, clutching their chests like asthmatics/ For mathematics, a natural dash of black magic,” Rakaa spits on “Good As Gone”, and that kind of craftsmanship boosts the album’s staying power.Directors of Photography sounds the way you might expect it to, just by looking at the production credits or knowing anything about alt rap. Evidence and DJ Babu are joined by The Alchemist, DJ Premier, Oh No, Jake One, Diamond D, and 9 th Wonder in configuring an album that earnestly strives to be authentically hip-hop. It’s a respectable effort, even when it grows routine. When most accurately staging as a doppelganger of rap’s boom-bap essence, Directors of Photography is stimulating in the zest with which it tries to recapture the zeitgeist of classic underground culture. The Aloe Blacc assist “Show Me the Way” loops a heavy drum kick and layers it with two different piano riffs.
“The Dark Room” distorts wailing vocals to create a shadowy sense of depth. “Directors” is Evidence channeling his good buddy Alchemist with eerie piano keys. Every producer must’ve understood the purpose of this album: preserving “real” rap, the rap that purists fawn over. Directors of Photography, both in its lyricism and musicality, upholds traditional rap principles with a commitment to the underground as an abstract ideal.On the album’s closer, “The Bigger Picture”, Evidence transparently describes his loyalty to this intangible hub from which he and so many other acts sprung: “Some move to the future, others livin’ it slow/ Old tunes tryna find where the memories flow.” Hip-hop music is continuing to push forward into the avant-garde, leading the charge with cutting edge sounds that stray further and further from the norm with each passing year. No matter how experimental the world gets, though, Dilated Peoples aren’t budging.Essential Tracks: “Good As Gone”, “Let Your Thoughts Fly Away”, and “Directors”.