Die for the Government Anti-Flag tosses up the kind of vintage, early-’80s, So-Cal, melodic punk that B.Y.O., Frontier, Posh Boy, and other labels specialized in, and a ska song is welcome. New Red Archives.
Customer Review: An album I could imagine Emma Goldman and Ward Churchill slam-dancing to!
Besides being really awesome activists and talented punk rockers, these guys are totally hot! I’m sure that some of you homophobes out there will cringe at that remark, but oh well, get over yourselves. What can I say? Mohawks and righteous politics turn me on. More accessible than earlier anarcho-punk bands like Crass or Conflict, Anti-flag is bringing radical punk into the 21st century. Imagine a younger, cuter Noam Chomsky playing an electric guitar and you’ll get an idea of what this band is about. Fans of Propagandhi will love this album. Angry, passionate, and committed to social change, this is a band you need to hear, a band that truly speaks to the real concerns of my generation, a band using their talent not to pacify the masses but to encourage them instead to fight for a better world.

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Pimps Don’t Pay taxes Customer Review: Experimental Hip-Hop
If you’re reading this review, then you already understand J-Zone is not your typical rap artist today. He’s creative, untiring, and most of all, funny as hell. His album Pimps Don’t Pay taxes is truly an artistic hip-hop joyride. A break from the normal if you will. Why a three star rating then? It’s simple, J-Zone is not a great emcee.

You can argue all you want, but the fact remains J-Zone is not as skilled as many would like to give him credit for when he’s on the M-I-C. Sure, he’s very entertaining, and yes, his storytelling is something 99.9% of other hip-hop artist could only dream of touching, but having an extreme gift off the M-I-C doesn’t make up for his lack of skills on the M-I-C. Pimps Don’t Pay taxes is a really good album. It really is, but only if you’re into creative and experimental hip-hop. Other greats like Kool Keith, MF Doom and even Outkast possess that ability to be creative both on and off the M-I-C.

As an ending result, I give J-Zone five stars for creativity, but only one star for delivery, flow and presence/charisma on the M-I-C. Thus my three star rating. This album is not a classic, so lets be fair here, and give this album a fair rating. Pimps Don’t Pay taxes is easily J-Zone at his finest, but even still, his best work isn’t worthy of being “classic” hip-hop. J-Zone himself clearly calls out the “backpacker” type rap fans in this album time and time again, yet still, many of these fans give him extreme credit for making this album, and would go to the extent of calling this classic hip-hop. I simply beg to differ.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 29th, 2007 at 2:10 pm and is filed under Taxes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.