Rating:
  Review Date: February 9, 2007
  Website: Thisish Website
  Label: Thisish Records

Thisish “Vol. 1″ Album Review
I recently saw the movie “The Pursuit of Happyness” starring my man Will Smith. In the movie, Smith’s character, Chris Gardner, had a job interview with a prestigious stockbroker firm to enter their selective internship program. The night before the interview, Gardner was arrested for unpaid parking tickets while painting his apartment. The police kept him overnight, forcing Gardner to run straight from jail to his interview the next morning, wearing a wife beater and covered in white paint.  

When attempting to explain his situation, the head interviewer asked, “Chris, what would you say if man walked in here with no shirt, and I hired him?” Without batting an eye, Gardner replied, “He must have had on some really nice pants.” This made the head dogg laugh, and he offered Gardner a spot in their training program.

I thought about this quote when I heard Thisish’s album. This album is all instrumentals and beats … no lyrics. And my website is called “Hip-Hop Linguistics,” meaning it focuses on the lyrics and words presented in hip-hop music. Yet I decided to review it anyway. Because if you were to ask me what I would say if Hip-Hop Linguistics reviewed an album with no words, I’d reply, “It must have had some really nice beats, homie.”

The Art of Freestyle
Cats often ask me why I don’t rhyme. “You got all that word skill homie … look at what you write,” they say. “You could probably say some nice shit on the mic.” And to be honest with you, sometimes I get big headed and pay attention to that shit. I listen to new hip-hop pretty much everyday, and I occasionally find myself thinking, “I could do better than this … I should rhyme yo!”

I guess that’s what I really liked about Thisish’s “Vol. 1″: it made me want to freestyle rap. Freestyling is an improvisational form of rapping, with no previously composed lyrics. Often considered the purest form of hip-hop, freestyle rap is non-scripted, non-rehearsed and uncut, and gives a first-hand reflection of an artist’s mental state, performing skill and ability to create off-the-head rhymes and lyrics.

To me, the measure of a real emcee is largely based on his freestyle skills. After all, anyone can write and rehearse lyrics … but it ain’t easy being able to think, create, flow and rhyme all at once. Try it sometime and you’ll see. Since Thisish’s “Vol. 1″ was all instrumental, it took away the need to listen to what someone was trying to say, and gave me the opportunity to apply my own flows, lyrics and direction to the music.

Peep my Mic Skills!
This weekend, while driving to Boulder, CO for a Kool Keith concert, I threw in some Thisish and decided to peep my mic skills. All alone in my car, I spent the entire 45 minute drive merrily freestyling over the wide selection of hip-hop beats, electronic bumps and soulful instrumentals presented in the album. And in the process, I learned a lesson that I seem to learn every couple months in this life … I got no skills, homie. Zero.

My freestyle attempt was an embarrassing jumbled mess of shit talking, repetitious clichés, off-beat wack rhymes and, at times, language invented solely to create a rhyme after verbally painting myself into a corner. I sadly exited my car and headed into the concert, realizing once again that my contribution to hip-hop was obviously never intended to be lyrical.

Once inside, I ran into my homie Distrakt, a Colorado Springs rapper who earned the top spot in our best underground of 2006 list, as he opened for Kool Keith that night. After conversing for awhile, he asked me if I rhymed. “You got those skills with the pen,” he said. With what had just happened on the ride, I quickly confessed that I have no rhyming skills, and Distrakt said, “Oh well, your website is my favorite hip-hop site on the Internet … so maybe that’s what you’re meant to do.”

The Many forms of Hip-Hop Art
While this made me smile, it also made me think. Former Source editor, author of “Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation,” and prominent hip-hop journalist and historian Jeff Chang recently wrote a book entitled “Total Chaos: The Art and Aesthetics of Hip-Hop,” which is about the importance of hip-hop related art forms other than rapping. In an interview with Metro New York, Chang said:

Hip-hop arts are thought of only as rap music, but our generation has taken it into the visual arts, photography, graphic design, literature, poetry, dance and theater. It’s gone well beyond rap music. Critics don’t recognize it, but the artists feel they are working in a hip-hop tradition. [1]

In light of Thisih’s “Vol. 1″ and what Distrakt said at the Boulder Kook Keith concert, this makes a lot of sense to me. So what if I can’t rhyme? I can write, and the manner in which I do it makes it no less hip-hop than rapping, break dancing, graf writing, or any other accepted hip-hop art form. If I could rhyme, the soon-to-be best hip-hop site on the Internet might not even exist today. And then we’d all really be in trouble homie.

Therefore, I would like to express my gratitude to Thisish and their exceptional hip-hop instrumental album “Vol. 1.” Without artists like Thisish helping me to realize how wack my rhyme skills really are, I might be another untalented emcee trying to make it in the world of rap instead of realizing what my real contribution to the culture is or could be. Good looks for real.

So if you’re someone who loves the art of freestyle or wants to learn how to be a good improvisational rapper, pick up a copy of Thisish’s “Vol. 1.” I guarantee it will have you freestlying all day, even if you have no skills on the mic like me. Peace.