Though Gutter Rainbows has been
on the net since Talib put it Myspace last week, it officially drops to day, and the fourteen-track sixth solo album is a
classic in the making. Every side we've seen from Talib makes an
appearance on the album, from the Reflection Eternal and Blackstar
collaborations, to elements of his previous albums — we get the style he's built
himself on in a blend of sound that seems to have been waiting for
him to catch up to.
Gutter
Rainbows falls in the limbo between the final rain of the season and first ray
of sun, playing off of the album's title and fitting with hinted themes designed around the concept of optimism
amidst bleaker times. Talib delivers in every lyrical tone and style
he's shared with us over the years, twisting his intellectual rhymes around well-laid commentary, narratives and messages that combine
into a smooth-flowing groove that rolls through transitions with
ease. The tracks are carefully placed to play off of one
another — celebratory songs such as “Friends and Family” placed between darker street narratives like “Tater Tot” and the
upbeat soul-disco style “Ain't Waiting” — and create a
fuller hip-hop experience than if they'd been focused around
a singular aspect of the genre.
Talib aside, much of the diversity in Gutter
Rainbows is derived from the production; each song on the
fourteen-piece tracklist belongs to its own producer, preventing any sense of repetition of style. Ski Beatz, Maurice Brown, 88-Keys, and eleven others come
together to lay out a platter of incomparable sounds and
create a buffet that, as I mentioned, gives the album a true prism of
color for the music to shine through.
The free, early net release says enough
about Talib's philosophy at this point in his career, and the quality
of the album is a testament to his endurance as an artist in a highly competitive and changing industry. Though the test of
time has not been set, I'll take the chance and say that Gutter
Rainbows contains ready-made classics that will undoubtedly
become highlights of Talib's career. It's an album you can listen
through without skipping a track, and a sound that resonates so
powerfully that it's difficult to enter a new song without first
exiting the last.
Sumology: an undeniably colorful
album that is rife with diversity; on par with the solo Ear Drum,
and an applaudable follow-up to last year's Reflection Eternal
collab Revolutions Per Minute.
Follow: JTL_ologyMusic
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