Archives of November 2013 (6)

For years, C.V.E. hasn't kept its promise. The Californian rap virtuosos were in the very heart of the Project Blowed and the Afterlife crews, they were more blessed with talents than any other rapper, but they only delivered flawed CD-Rs, poorly crafted records, full of rotten beats. For two decades, this group may have been the greatest waste of hip-hop's history. In the meantime, at the other end of the US, the Milled Pavement label, a sort of East Coast cousin for Anticon, was delivering some records full of ideas, concepts and good will, but rarely convincing.

By the early 2000's, because of his incredible and inebriated voice, his subtlety, his sense of humor and his vulnerability, because of his style made partly of classic hip-hop, partly of Project Blowed-influenced innovations, we predicted a triumph to Awol One. But it didn't happen. The most charismatic Shape Shifter never capitalized on the buzz around Souldoubt, in 2001. He remained an unsung hero, and he never released the masterpiece we expected. On the opposite, his records would become less and less noticeable, with the exception of the very convicting Only Death can Kill he released in 2007 with Factor, the Canadian beatmaker.