{"id":9338,"date":"2009-04-07T18:14:00","date_gmt":"2009-04-07T18:14:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=9338"},"modified":"2015-10-23T18:15:22","modified_gmt":"2015-10-23T18:15:22","slug":"album-review-readnex-poetry-squad-social-issue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2009\/04\/07\/album-review-readnex-poetry-squad-social-issue\/","title":{"rendered":"Album Review: Readnex Poetry Squad &#8211; Social Issue"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.musoscribe.com\/images\/readnex_poetry_squad.jpg\" alt=\"readnex_poetry_squad\" width=\"200\" height=\"200\" align=\"right\" border=\"1\" hspace=\"10\" vspace=\"10\" \/><br \/>\n<em>Guest review by Annelise Kopp<\/em><\/p>\n<p><i>Social Issue<\/i> is a collage piecing together different sounds, issues, words, and allusions. The album is very in touch with history, and has an educated basis. I was first given hope by the subtitle &#8220;poetry squad&#8221; on this album. To me, this signaled an emphasis on lyrics. I was proven right by poignant writing, with its messages about the state of our nation. This is an interesting album that explores all sorts of ideas (hence the album&#8217;s title, <i>Social Issue<\/i>).<\/p>\n<p>Some of their songs have the more-typical gangsta rap feel, while others are much more unusual with background music and spoken word. I enjoy rap (with the exception of a lot of the worn-out shit that gets played on the radio), but it&#8217;s sometimes hard to pinpoint value in a rap album that&#8217;s just enjoyable to listen to. This album is different: it&#8217;s not only an enjoyable listen, but there are distinctive reasons beyond this that make it worthwhile.<\/p>\n<p>Each track is different from the last. &#8220;Wade&#8221; begins with the classic hymn &#8220;Wade in the Water&#8221; before the rap fades in. &#8220;Calles&#8221; has a reggae beat while &#8220;Ms. Education of Bling&#8221; has strings and piano in the background. The average tempo of songs on the record is slow, and the album is made much more for listening than for dancing.<\/p>\n<p>This group of four refers to themselves both as poets and MCs, which is, after hearing <i>Social Issue<\/i>, very appropriate. Lyrics are in English and Spanish. Readnex Poetry Squad explores different styles, languages, and content. Overall, this is a very good album with content of substance and diversity from song to song, and even within songs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Guest review by Annelise Kopp Social Issue is a collage piecing together different sounds, issues, words, and allusions. The album is very in touch with history, and has an educated [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[36,65],"tags":[2517],"class_list":["post-9338","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hip-hop","category-review","tag-readnex-poetry-squad","cat-36-id","cat-65-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9338","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9338"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9338\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9339,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9338\/revisions\/9339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}