Rating:
  Release Date: April 4, 2006
  Website: Soul Position Website
  Label: Rhymesayers

Soul Position “Things Go Better With RJ and Al” Album Review
I had a recent run in with my cell phone company, Cingular. My bill for the month of March was a little under $300! See, once I go over my minutes, these punks charge me forty cents a minute for the rest of the billing cycle. Therefore, I decided to try to cut back on my calls. For the entire month of April, I screened every call I took and was confident that I did not exceed my limits. When the bill arrived, Cingular claimed that I owed them $180 for that month. Damn, man … does anyone else think this is a ridiculous price to pay for a measly 600 minutes of airtime?

After paying the second outrageous cell phone bill in as many months, I realized that I would have to upgrade my plan. I obviously needed more minutes. Therefore, I went to the Cingular website, completed the required steps, and kicked my plan up to 1350 minutes a month with rollover. “Hell yeah,” I thought . “these cats won’t get me for any more three-hundred-dollar months.”

It was only a couple days later that I left for my trip to NYC. For the entire week I was there, I confidently made use of my cell phone during peak hours, knowing for certain that I could never go over 1350 minutes in just one month. I was calling my peeps bragging and shit . trying to look like the man; giving everybody cell phone advice likse I worked for Cingular or something. I guess this all made it that much funnier when I returned home only to find that I was already over my monthly minutes with over two weeks left in the billing cycle. Astonished, I checked my minutes online, and it turns out that Cingular failed to apply my upgrade. Instead, they were only allowing me 450 anytime minutes for the entire month!

After a couple emails and customer service calls, most leading to an unfavorable opinion of the Cingular organization, I finally got a vague answer from someone. For a reason that is still inexplicable by anyone at Cingular, the company could not upgrade my minutes until the June billing cycle because I made the upgrade one day into the May billing cycle, despite the fact that I was told that the upgrade process was quick and easy by the kid who sold me the plan. No one attempted to help me. No one even cared. It seems that they just wanted to trick me into another three hundred dollar month before having to move on to ripping off someone else. I was and am still stuck. I won’t be able to pick up my phone during peak hours until the end of May, or I will be charged forty cents a minute.

I Need My Minutes!!!
Now, ironically, the worst part of this experience doesn’t even involve wack ass Cingular. For the past week, people have been calling me during peak hours like crazy! And for no good reason, too. Cats just wanting to holler and waste my minutes. But what hits the hardest is that I’m seen as the dick when I don’t pick up, instead opting to text message you to call me after nine. And if I do pick up and attempt to explain, these cats just ask mad questions and won’t let me get off the phone, mostly acting like me and trying to give advice based on their own personal cell phone expertise. And since I’m too nice to just hang up on somebody, I’m easily on my way to a two hundred dollar month.

In the midst of this experience, I have started to think about people and their cell phones. I mean, am I the only one who has these negative experiences with wireless phones? I was driving to work thinking about it, with my iPod on shuffle, and was amazed to hear a song come on that answered my question. The song was called “I Need My Minutes.” I had to glance at the listing to see that it was off the new Soul Position album, which dropped in April but must have somehow fell through the cracks in my listening rotation. The song was simple and funny, and summed up several problems with wireless phones:

I understand that you wanna talk to me
But Verizon Wireless is dogging me
Don’t you know the weekend and nights are free?
So if it ain’t one of those, don’t holler at me
That’s just reality, man
There’s really no need to be mad at me, man
You running your mouth like we family, man
You need to enroll in a family plan
Cause time is money . literally
And last I checked, man, you live on my street
Still calling my cell to kick it with me
You can walk two blocks and we can kick it for free
For I go, let me break it down
If I don’t pick it up, then I’m not out of town
I’m probably in the studio just laying around
It costs too much to waste time on you clowns

I listened to the track like five times on the way to work, cracking up the entire time. It really made me feel good that I wasn’t the only one with these cellular problems. When I got in front of a computer, I decided to do some research on the Soul Position album containing this track: “Things Go Better with RJ and AL.” As is common with hip-hop albums these days, “Things Go Better .” was dissed by untalented and repetitive reviewers. In general, they felt the album started off dogging the lack of reality in hip-hop, then finished with a bunch of tracks that are saying nothing and therefore not representative of real hip-hop either (pitchfork, prefix, nobodysmiling). The next day, I decided to give it a good listen to see what I thought.

How is that not Hip-Hop?
To be honest with you, I don’t know what those reviewers were even talking about. I thought the album was exceptional: funny, entertaining, pleasing to the ear. RJD2’s beats are pretty much always tight, and Blueprint’s lyrics are clever and interesting as always. But most of all, I think the album was definitely representative of what I like to consider real hip-hop.

True, the album might not be talking about overly-important or serious stuff. But I’m tired of albums talking about who’s tight and who’s wack. As if real hip-hop is somehow defined by a bunch of songs talking about what real hip-hop should be. Instead, Soul Position created a bunch of unique tracks about real life that serve to define some of the hip-hop generation’s experience. In addition, many of the topics, like the cell phone song that related to my current experience, are different than what everybody else is talking about, yet hold truth and great storytelling. How is that not real hip-hop?

“Blame It On the Jager” is a story about how drinking too much can effect your standards when it comes to women, an effect referred to in popular culture as “the beer goggle effect.” I ain’t going to lie, man, that’s happened to me. “Keep It Hot For Daddy” is a track about wanting his girl to have certain qualities, such as good personality, good job and what a hip hop linguist might refer to as a “badonkadonk.” And I’m definitely feeling those qualifications. “Keys,” “Drug, Sex, Alcohol, Rock N Roll” and “Things Go Better” demonstrate great storytelling with a moral. Damn, man, who don’t like stories? And “I’m Free,” “The Cool Thing You Do” and “Priceless” ask important questions while making you question reality and truth in our culture. Again, what about all that is not real hip-hop?

Hip-hop seems to be at some crossroads in attempting to define what’s real and what’s not. Haters are always saying hip-hop should be unique and different, and move away from the gangster, jiggy or bling eras, then hate on a group such as Soul Position because all of a sudden the uniqueness or simplicity of their music doesn’t seem real because it is different from what you’re used to hearing on the radio. Talk about hypocrisy. I think real hip-hop fans will acknowledge the brilliance of this album despite what all these cats might think.

So ignore all these hip-hop reviewers and give another kind of real hip-hop a chance. Check out Soul Position’s new album “Things Go Better with RJ and Al.” And stop calling me during peak hours muthafuckas! My plan will be upgraded on the 27th. Peace.

Related:
If you like Soul Position, you should check out Chali 2Na “Fish Market”, Aceyalone “Magnificent City”, and Atmosphere “You Can’t Imagine How Much Fun We’re Having”.