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The Foreign Exchange - Connected
- Foreign Exchange-Connected
They say to know where you’re going, you have to know where you’ve been. Well,the tag team of Foreign Exchange, consisting of Raleigh(NC BABY!!!!)-based Phonte(from underground faves Little Brother) and Netherland-residing producer Nicolay know where they’ve been, and they tread on to familiar ground with their freshman release. With their album, "Connected ", they’ve managed to pull us into a musical time warp, taking the listener back to the early to mid-90s, with a few hints of where they’re trying to take it.
The first real track on the album (after the intro), "Von Sees", sets the tone for the rest of the album. It’s laid back, lazy rhythm, head nodding beat is a pre-cursor for the entire disc, which can be a bad thing, because a lot of the record comes off sounding like lost tracks from A Tribe Called Quest. Other tracks such as "Hustle Hustle" ,"Nics Groove"
and "Come Around", all sound like they came from former Tribe producer Jay-Dees' closet. The way the bass rolls over the beats, the snares and even some of the hooks on here sound like former works by the original Slum Village producer.
On the other hand, stronger tracks such as "Raw", with it’s weird telephone sample and its lovely 80’s sounding synthesizer, and the breezy "Be Alright" are two of the stronger cuts on the album. However, the D’Angelo-esque track, "Brave New World" just might be the strongest song on the album, musically and lyrically. With lyrics that bring you into rapper Phontes’ life, it shows a side and an honesty hardly felt in hip-hop these days. With rhymes like, "This rap shit aint all about hoe’s and supermodels/It’s more about me making this money to pay my car note/So our family can feed each other/these days my ends are perfect strangers/who won’t never meet each other" , he brings you into his reality, his struggles and his motivation for trying to be successful.
Two of the R&B tracks, "Sincere" and "Come Around", don’t do much for the album, however the third one, "Happiness" has a real nice bouncy groove with impressive vocals and a catchy hook that more than makes up for the first two R&B missteps.
All in all, what they lack in originality, they make up for in vibe. The cd has a real nice, summertime feel to it. If you’re jonesin for the classic vibe of early/mid 90’s hip-hop, this is the cd for you, because is shows you where hip-hop used to be. Too bad it doesn’t show you where it could go.
Reviewer: Ray Anderson
new
Reviewer's Rating: 6.5
Reader's Rating: 9.85
Reader's Votes: 7
Added: 16-Sep-2004
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