Little Brother - The Listening: Album Review

Little Brother, The Listening (ABB, 2003)
Little Brother is a group that was actually, from what I've heard, discovered from the message boards on the Roots website over at Okayplayer.com, which, on the one hand is kind of cool, but on the other hand, is not really that cool at all. I mean, it was cool that they actually got into the game and everything, but I'm sure it'll somehow end up being bad for them in the long run. For example, Common started rolling with those dudes a while ago and hasn't been right ever since. Next thing you know, he was dating Erykah "Bad Hygene" Badu and wearing all kinds of weird clothes.

I hear Bad Hygene is with the D.O.C. now and flushing the yayo down the toilet and shit so whoever it is in Little Brother that ends up getting turned out, probably 9th Wonder (I can't remember any of those other dudes' names), will end up with that one toothless bitch from Floetry, which is actually cool for certain purposes (I'll leave that to your imagination), but otherwise entirely unacceptable. Mos Def will probably be the best man and also sing some kind of faux afrocentric version of that Jeffrey Osborne "Woo Woo Woo" song at the wedding. Talib Kweli'll be over by the mini bar getting all angry and threatening to beat people up and shit. Ten years from now, we'll be sitting around talking about how good Little Brother used to be before they started hanging out with the Roots.

MORNING

Honestly, that little "Bang! The future of hip-hop music." thing they borrowed from Rain Man is not as amusing as they probably thought it was going to be, but it doesn't begin to approach Collge Dropout levels of ridonkulous-ness.

GROUPIE, PT. 2

I'm pretty sure nobody has ever wanted to have sex with any of these guys just because they were in Little Brother. Has anybody actually seen these guys? I'm the CEO of PenceFo Industries and girls don't exactly fawn over me. At least they've got 9th Wonder making their beats. I think that's my problem.

FOR YOU

This one's good. Actually that last one was pretty good too. It's just that I just got finished listening to that new Kanye West album and I felt like bitching about something.

SPEED

I think the key in a lot of these 9th Wonder productions is that he's singing on a lot of the choruses himself. Or is that somebody else? At the very least, it's not choirs of wailing schoolchildren and gospel singers.

WHATEVER YOU SAY

As in "Whatever you say. Unless I'm paying, in which case it's whatever I say." Another thing I like about Little Brother is that they rap about everyday shit that the average guy can relate to.

MAKE ME HOT

This shit is actually pretty amusing as far as skits on rap albums go. LOL at "'72 Dramatics mixed w/ '87 Ready for the World w/ Sheila E on congos." If worked correctly, how could that not be the Best Shit Ever?

THE YO-YO

I liked that part where the guy was talking about these phony ass people who hang out in coffee houses, even though that probably would be a pretty good place to meet white chicks. Byron needs a pork chop on his plate too.

SHORTY ON THE LOOKOUT

Oh man, this one's good. Especially that part at the end where they just let the vocal sample ride out like that. Talk about a good idea!

LOVE JOINT REVISITED

You notice like pretty much every song on this album is about chicks. These dudes must be hard up. Not to diss or anything, but let's face it, chicks aren't going to want to have sex with you just because you're in a good rap group (they wouldn't know the difference in the first place). You have to be Fabolous or somebody.

SO FABOLOUS

Speaking of Fabolous... Seriously though, they do have a tendency to work that "quoting other MCs rhymes from the late '80s" thing pretty hard. Not just on this song, but throughout.

THE WAY YOU DO IT

You know what's a good song? "Electric Relaxation" by A Tribe Called Quest.

ROY LEE, PRODUCER EXTRAORDINAIRE

Roy Lee knows what the young boys like (no homo).

THE GETUP

This album just refuses to get bad as it goes along. I was almost certain that this song was going to be annoying crap just based on the generic sounding title, but it turns out it was only the chorus and some of the lyrics, just like most of the rest of the songs on here.

AWAY FROM ME

You know what's another good song? "They Reminisce Over You" by Pete Rock and C.L. Smooth. At least these fuckers have good taste.

NOBODY BUT YOU

I'm beginning to think that I just might not be qualified to review this kind of album. Give me anything that sounds even vaguely like Pete Rock and I begin to salivate. It might be some sort of Pavlovian thing. You should just stop reading this right now.

HOME

The Quiet Storm: Shhhhhhhhh! They could've saved this one.

NIGHTTIME MANEUVERS

This one too.

THE LISTENING

You know what else is a good song? "I Used to Love H.E.R." by Common Sense. Seriously.

Whenever Little Brother eventually does turn into some shitty neo soul group, it's gonna be a damn shame b/c they really were onto something w/ this album. Maybe they weren't the most creative group to come along in rap music, but at least their shit sounds a lot like Pete Rock, b/c when it's all said and done w/, isn't that what really matters?