General Music Chat

It’s common knowledge that just about every Hip Hop artist has sampled Rick James at one point or another in their career, but did you know Rick James was behind one of Hip Hop’s most classic albums? Despite being a huge Talib Kweli fan, I just read that Rick James was a producer on Train of Thought, the debut album from Reflection Eternal, the classic pairing of Kweli and with DJ Hi-Tek. This album stands as a high water mark for conscious Hip Hop, not only for it’s positive lyrical content but also it’s smooth, funky beats that stood out from the overproduced mainstream rap of the late 90’s. Knowing that James had a large role in the direction of this project, you can almost instantly hear his influence all over the album. If you havn’t listened to this record in awhile (it came out 10 years ago on Oct 17th…) take a minute today to revisit this Hip Hop classic.