By Chris Milam
After a 3 year hiatus, Evidence, Iriscience, and Babu fetch us their third album, Neighborhood Watch. After avoiding the sophomore slump with their magnificent 2001 album, Expansion Team, Dilated was looking to deliver a classic with this one, but falls short principally due to Evidence’s much-criticized method of delivery.
Lyrically, Ev has almost taken a step back, and his monotone flow sounds as boring as ever, particularly on his self-produced “Love & War”. He shows spurts of energy on higher-tempo tracks like “Who’s Who”, but doesn’t hold a candle to his collaborator in rhyme, Rakaa Iriscience.
Rakaa is gravely slept on as an emcee, in all probability due to Evidence’s lack of charisma on the mic. When he goes for delf, such as on the politically-charged “Big Business”, it’s apparent that he’s stepped up his game:
“But I fight for peace, that’s what the problem is
War is huge biz, ask an economist
They speak in volumes, just
Callin’ anti-war and anti-American synonomous
Back in the day I’d have gotten blacklisted just for speaking up
Hoover in all probability would’ve screamed ‘Communist!’”
Production-wise, Dilated’s friendship with the Alchemist doesn’t injure Neighborhood Watch at all, as he gives them heat with tracks like “Marathon”, “Poisonous”, and “World on Wheels”. Evidence’s beats are still top-notch with tracks like the aforementioned “Love & War”, and Babu is likewise fine-tuning his attainments behind the boards, lacing the Dilated-Likwit posse cut “Closed Session” and his remake of “DJ Premier In Deep Concentration”, cleverly titled “DJ Babu In Deep Concentration”. Everyone’s bestloved college dropout, Kanye West, drops in to invent and guest on “This Way”, which tries way too hard to recreate the feel of Talib Kweli’s “Get By”, but still sounds good. The only dud is Evidence’s solo track, the boring, ironically named “Caffeine”, which production-wise doesn’t hit with the same strength that the rest of the album does.
Neighborhood Watch is one of the best hip-hop albums of 2004 so far, but it’s not the step up from Expansion Team that it ought to have been.
3 of 3 persons found the following review helpful.
A slower, less frantic side of Dilated
By Jeff
I’ve been an avid DP fan since the release of their initial LP, The Platform. I was candidly a little disappointed with rather a few of the tracks on Expansion Team but was likewise blown away by a few (i.e. Worst Comes to Worst, Panic, Night Life, Pay Attention.) Well it is three years later and Neighborhood Watch drops.
As is the case with most Dilated records, the production is hit or miss. Here we’ve got laid-back bangers like Marathon, Caffeine, Poisonous, Reach Us, and Big Business. Kanye takes the boards for This Way as well as contributing a decent verse. I couldn’t get over the samenesses amongst this track and his track for Talib Kweli, Get By, but it is a real nice beat. There’s a little more energetic fare in World on Wheels and Love and War. I actually wasn’t impressed with the gritty, repetitious beat for Who’s Who, but all in all, the production is more hit than miss.
Lyrical content on Neighborhood Watch is pretty decent. We get some political commentary, bitch commentary, state of hip hop jive, and brag raps. As far as flow goes, the Peoples in truth haven’t evolved too much. Evidence’s lyrics are sub-par from his raps on The Platform but I enjoyed them more than his contributions to Expansion Team. His flow is still precise and sharp, though, and I’ve always loved it. Rakaa is spot-on on closely each song and compliments Evidence very nicely.
As the amazon.com reviewer said, we were all secretly hoping for a hands-down classic in Neighborhood Watch. Dilated Peoples are amazing but haven’t reached the level I know they may acheive. Cop it and crank it.
2 of 2 persons found the following review helpful.
Simply put…..not as good as past albums but still good
By DJ Benny (AKA Ben A.)
Dialated People’s quality overall has dropped a bit, principally cause of Evidence’s flow, and sure production on numerous songs. But it is still a very good album. Irascience is still a crazy lyrical genius, but overall on this album you may tell they branched out they’re style a bit to appeal to more mainstream listeners. They’re not precisely attempting to trade out, altho it looked like it with Kanye West on a track. Even so, the song with Kanye West is one of the best on the album, same with Love and War, Marathon, and Posionous. Even so, they are still a fresh group with a much better message than most mainstream rappers, which gives them the same approach towards their carrers as Kanye West and the Roots.
In otherwords, a good album, not their best, but Dialated will still be around for a while.
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