01 RPM's
02 City Playgrounds
03 Back Again (ft Res)
04 Strangers (Paranoid) (ft Bun B)
05 In This World
06 Got Work
07 Midnight Hour (ft Estelle)
08 Lifting Off
09 In The Red
10 Black Gold Intro
11 Ballad Of The Black Gold
12 Just Begun (ft Jay Electronica, J Cole and Mos Def)
13 Long Hot Summer
14 Get Loose (ft Chester French)
15 So Good
16 Ends (ft Bilal)
17 My Life (Outro)
Link | Buy | Deluxe
Myspace
Deluxe version is available with 3 bonus tracks. Drops May 18th!
9 comments:
thanks for the drop, i've been waiting for this one. As for the music though, seriously disappointed. I can't help but make a comparison to train of thought. Yeah I guess they're trying a new sound but the quality is so weak. Train of thought is a classic, revolutions per minute will come and go. I remember even the sound of the drums used to drive me crazy, now they just sound mechanical. The quality of the samples has dropped in favor of nasty sounding synthesizers. Where's Hi-Tek's quality control gone?! I could go on. Anyway thanks again, I now know not to waste my money on it! I'll keep playing train of thought and forget this one ever happened!
To all you, ode to the old days of hip hop heads. Get off it. This is that new shit, 1995 is gone. Deal with it. New shit has to come. And I for one think this shit is dope. Am I going to go comparing it to a fucking classic of its time, No. Am I going to take it for what its worth in this time of no new dope, Yes. There are no new styles worth progression. If you don't think its dope, make something that is. What IS the NEW DOPE?
Fair comment but I think u've missed my point. U make it sound like I was talking about all new hip hop. I love both old and new sounds. It doesn't matter when it's from, just as long as it sounds good and has quality. There's a ton of dope artists out there doing there thing today, maybe u just need to do some more digging before you settle for this shit.
I completely agree with Dusted12. I've been waiting for this album, finally - i thought - reflection eternal is back and they're going to release some hot shit as they did in '99. this album is a huge disappointment. sometimes i just thought i'm listening to an album which has some 6th-class-rubbish-mtv-videoclip-anthems. hi-tek had his golden years in the last century, fullstop. what he's producing now is completely different, and none of us will like it that much what he did with the train of thought or the first hi-teknology.
there is the new dope out there, but i can't call this new reflection album neither new dope, nor revolution.
i personally love late-90s' hiphop, and i hope there're going to remain some producers from those times who won't start producing this kind of rubbish.
-A Shift In The Paradigm Of Hip Hop-
To say "what happen to the old dope" is so cliche and trendy now. Both of you need to sit back and look at what is here, not at whats been gone. We all know what 95, 99, any of those years sound like, they are not coming back. Quit having such high expectation because two guys put out a dope album. Having one hit doesn't mean you're automatically going to have another. Its been 10+ plus years since the last album. If they had dope shit in their veins, It wouldn't have taken 10+ years to develop.
And to be quiet honest, it's not like what they did in 99 was sent from the Gods. Its was a good album, that's where it ends. You both, I think, need to dig a bit further into real hip hop. And me settling for this? I never cared about it coming out in the first place. I'm saying its dope and has good tracks. You full on throw it out in disgust? Come on now. You can't keep producing mid-90's sound. It just won't happen. Artist grow up and out of certain things. Also, most real artists have new ideas and like to take challenges. Listen to the Intro track to the album, I thought it was pretty clear what their point is with current hip hop/music. I could go on and on about artist after artist thats changed. This is what happens in music, it IS a good thing. Embrace it, things change and hopefully progress. Again listen to the intro track, its all too clear for me. Also, its like you guys are mostly upset over the sound of the beats. That's only half the album, there are also lyrics included. Which I doubt you've had anytime to actually listen to, articulate and digest them. If all you want is beats, this album isn't for you. Until then you should try to listen to what's new and coming down the pike. Try to keep up with the changes, or you will miss 'THE NEW DOPE'! -A Shift In The Paradigm Of Music-
Well, well, well. So good to see so many witty comments. But that's the way it is, isn't it: This is how it is supposed to be when it comes to such a highly anticipated album like the new RE one. I was away for a while, but I wanted to return to spread words again and what else could be better for this purpose than the new album of Kweli and Hi-Tek.
First of all, thanks a lot for Thebaddest to share this record with us, the BBRS community. Second : keeping on saying that hip-hop between 93 and 99 was the dopest is getting boring. I've been listening to hip-hop music since the Low End Theory came out and it was back in 1991, almost 20 years ago and I must say (sorry hit me with a stone if you wish) but I never liked the BDP, RUN DMC and Grandmaster Flash era of the '80's. Once I mentioned it to a head (5-6 years older) in a radio in Hungary and he started to dis me. He just couldn't understand it. Sorry, I don't like it, it's too old school for me. What I'm trying to say is that we all should wake up and realize that we got a bit older so it's natural that we all have our golden age of hip-hop which is gonna be the best for us under every possible circumstance. Nonetheless, we shouldn't forget that hip-hop is a genre that isn't different from other genres in one important thing: it is evolving. I love mid-nighties hip-hop, cause this is the time when I started to listen to this music, this is how I got acquainted with it etc. There are producers (like Damu the Fudgemunk) who try to continue this beatflow (which I personally like), but the new audience expects other stuff from the musicians: stuff that is more in line with the new expectations. Just like me at the age of 12 not wishing to hear '80's music anymore.
Calling this album rubbish is a bit too far-fetched. There are indeed good tracks on it with good beats and bassline from Hi-Tek or sharp rhymes from Kweli ("Back Again", "Just Begun", "My Life", "Lifting Off", "Ends", "Ballad Of The Black Gold": just to name a few), and there are some bad ones as well: giving Bun B a role on this album is a fiasco I think. Personally I did see Kweli moving towards commercial and I saw it as a bad move. However I'm happy to confirm that this album is not a mainstream, BEP-like effort but rather something that tries to bring some changes to hip-hop music. You can like like it and dislike it but never expect a bomb to blow twice the same big. On the other hand, we all know the Train Of Thought. Is it really such a classic? True that there were some anthems on it like "Move Something" or "The Blast" but the whole album itself with ALL its tracks? Would it really be an all time classic? I doubt that.
People! What you're doing here is nothing but comparing "Don't Stop Till You Get Enough" with "Black Or White". Do you think it has any sense? I love hip-hop a lot and I think it's obvious by reading my comments on this site for almost 2 years. Please, don't say that this album is rubbish. C'mon man, it's not Souljaboy: that is truly rubbish. Dusted 12! Keep listen to the Train Of Thought which is a dope album, but not a classic one. And one more thing: try to tell your son to stop play the music he will listen to in the next decades, just how my father tried to explain me why the music of the '70's was the best when I was 12-14. We'll see how successful you'll be with the early Gang Starr, Mobb Deep, LOTUG, Original Flavor or Wu-Tang tracks. We must accept that that era will only be classic to us: we can stubbornly get stuck there or try to listen to some new stuff and accept how music evolves. Should we go either way, we mustn't be afraid that Kweli and Hi-Tek will blow it. This is not what RE was before but definitely not rubbish either.
Thanks again Thebaddest. In nutshell: I must say it's better than expected.
" I never liked the BDP, RUN DMC and Grandmaster Flash era of the '80's. Once I mentioned it to a head (5-6 years older) in a radio in Hungary and he started to dis me."
Sounds like this head in Hungary understands how important the foundation and work of those pioneering artists and their contribution to the culture that you profess to know so much about, are.
Like me, as a thirty-five year old ex-graf writer, B-Boy & DJ /Turntablist that has loved, and continues to love TRUE Hip Hop culture, from 78 right through to current, this dude was probably wondering how you could come out with something like that and still profess to love and truly understand the grass roots of this culture that we know, love and live.
To say 'you don't like [old school artists / the sound] is to not like the very essence of Hip Hop itself - these artists WERE Hip Hop - they carved this music, graf, bboying, djing, beatboxing from the ether bruv. It transcends individual preference for this spitting style or that..
Not being funny mate but you talk in your comments like you're some sort of authority on Hip Hop, but all you've done is reveal yourself simply as 'a fan of rap music', a punter. You've displayed a shocking lack of overstanding, and as a result, alack of love, for Hip Hop. Yeah you can quote nuff golden era Hip Hop to me but it doesn't earn you your stripes bruv. The misunderstanding and the subsequent misrepresentation of proper Hip Hop is bastardising the culture, and sucking the life out of it.
It seems to me that you're missing a fundamental understanding of what Hip Hop is all about - you can never, as an individual or as a culture, know your future if you do not know and understand your past. This era is the very soul, the heartbeat of Hip Hop. Be aware of this, spectator!
You need to check the history of the Zulu Nation and the pioneers like Busy Bee, Cold Crush, the Fantastic Five, Double Trouble, Rocksteady Crew, and the graf writers of the day, guys like Lee, Tracy168, Iz The Wiz, Futura, The Chrome Angles etc. And, even if the individual style of those pioneers isn't to your preference (whether its their B-Boying / Graf / MCing / scratching etc), to have anything other than complete love and respect for that output, those artists, that era, is, frankly, shocking - especially as you obviously consider yourself an aficionado of Hip Hop.
I'd suggest starting with the movie Wildstyle - educate yourself mate, for your own sake. You'll never have any credit within the community otherwise, you'll get nothing but disrepect back as its the bones of everything we are. If you consider Wildstyle to be anything other than the wonderful, glorious birth of a new culture emerging before your eyes, and consider it a cliched, played-out era that is not worth even your efforts to digest and so understand, then I would suggest you find another musical genre to analyse, and perhaps whilst you're at it, analyse why you have latched onto a culture that you do not posses a basic understanding of. Perhaps its all for show, I don;t know.
What I do know is this: that the output of that era is bigger than musical preference. That era and the five pillars of Hip Hop that emerged from it, the history that it laid down.. that's the fundamental backbone of a culture.
In the words of the mighty KRS ONE (someone you have no taste for), Rap is something you do. Hip Hop is something you live.
Peace
ADE 0NE
@ADE 0NE man that was a huge post,thanks for bothering writing so many thinks..
everyone of us has his favorites,we cant say to noone you cant like that or you have to like that..its our opinion..
i am like Miska,i respect BDP, RUN DMC and Grandmaster Flash but i never really like them sorry they are not my cup of tea..
of course they are the history of hip hop but we cant all like the same thinks..
no one said that Miska has some aythority on hip hop,he write what he thinks like you and everybody else can,his role in here is to have something like a preview in bbrs what are his thoughts about what he listens..
also i m 30 ex graff writer and dj and i never liked old skool ish that makes me a less fan of hiphop?
man as you wrote hip hop is something you live and we all living it differently,we are all equals under hiphop ;)
i ve seen wildstyle looong time ago,an insipiring one..
hiphop will continue live and develope through time,peeps which represent the 5 elements and the fans of it will make sure of that;)
Peace
Mike
Great! This what happens if one grabs one piece out of the whole comment I wrote:
(1) Never claimed to be a hip-hop authority, I am just writing comments to a blog of which I am also an editor. I think the authority is not me but the one who picked out 15 words of a long comment and then tries to declare his (her? - no offence Anonymous) eternal truth. Which is, on the other hand, absolutely redundant. Why?
(2) Because I never said that I don't respect the roots of hip-hop and whatever started in '78 by Cool Herc. All I said was that I don't like the sounding of 80's hip-hop that much so I rather listen other stuff in my freetime. Should you try to grab out some sentences more where I say that I don't accept what they did for hip-hop would just surprise me. Why you couldn't find any?
(3) Because I never wrote anything like that, it is only something that is in your mind. All I tried to point out is that hiphop music is evolving and it has its different eras. We have to accept all these eras and it's not right to say that the RE album is rubbish just because someone's so much used to the mid and late 90´s hip-hop. This album obviously cannot sound the same way as the "Train Of Thought". That's all I said.
(4) So can you see the paralel relation? I love the 90's hiphop so much but I'm not going to say that it's better than hiphop in 2010. I have no authority to do so. Just as I have no authority to say that it is better than hip-hop music in the 80's. And I never said it was better or worse. All I said was the following: "we all should wake up and realize that we got a bit older so it's natural that we all have our golden age of hip-hop which is gonna be the best for us under every possible circumstance." Mine is the 90's. That's it. I respect what the old school cats did, never said the opposite.
(5) You obviously ceased reading my words after the lines you picked out of the paragraph, cause the whole point is coming only after that.
(6) I saw Wildstyle, it's a good film, so we don't have to go into teaching (at least at this point). I have Jeff Chang's book "Can't Stop Won't Stop" (one of my favourite books) from which I learnt that hip hop has four basic elements: Djing, MCing, breaking and graffiti (those declared by Afrika Bambaataa from the Zulu Nation - who you claimed I don't know). Yet you keep mentioning 5 elements, although beatboxing was never there.
(6) KRS One did and is still doing a lot for hip-hop both on a musical and a spiritual level, this is an undeniable fact. BDP's music is another thing, I never mentioned KRS on his own.
Putting everything together: we here (BBRS) are music lovers, we're spreading music around out of love, we're just doing our thing. I think nobody of us (including me) needs no hip-hop education, yet thanks a lot for your effort mate.
Enjoy the RE album by the way.
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