Rating:
  Review Date: March 8, 2007
  Website: X-Clan Website
  Label: Suburban Noize

X-Clan ”Return From Mecca” Album Review
Every once and awhile, an album comes along that makes me remember exactly why I started my own hip-hop website. X-Clan’s “Return From Mecca” is that album. I used to get so angry when brilliant albums got underrated by reviewers, dissed among fans and ignored by radio stations, so I started writing my own reviews to give hip-hoppers the real. And the real is … you should ignore the not-so-favorable Internet reviews on this album, because “Return From Mecca” is a classic, and the best hip-hop album of the year thus far.

Old Man Shit
One reviewer said X-Clan was behind the times [1], while another somehow found the album to be pop-influenced [2]. One fan said he didn’t give a shit about X-Clan, while another felt their music was no more than “old man shit” [3]. Other than that, the majority of so-called hip-hop websites didn’t even review the album, and I’m sure that if I did listen to the radio, I wouldn’t hear any X-Clan songs playing.

Maybe I’m becoming an old man. After all, I will be twenty-nine in April, which from my perspective makes me somewhat of an old-school hip-hopper in that I was around back before this bling-thug-gangster shit came around. Or maybe I find myself so starved for conscious, intelligent and introspective hip-hop that I’ll like anything with a positive or educational vibe. I don’t know man … but when I put “Return From Mecca” in my CD player, all I hear is dope beats, dope rhymes and intellectual topics. And to me, that’s what good hip-hop is all about.

While the album’s production does have somewhat of an old-school vibe, with samples, snare beats combined with heavy base lines, and some of that battle-flavored street party-ish DJ scratching, it is modernized with the addition of melodically-infused instrumentation consisting of several varieties of keys, strings and horns that seem to be created without the use of modern day computerized recording techniques. As expected, the album is intellectually-based, covering topics ranging from society and politics to self-worth and reflection. And I don’t know if Brother J has been doing breathing exercises or what, being that he must be in his forties by now, but he carries the album on his back lyrically, spitting like a new-school MC and holding ground with the likes of KRS-One, Chali 2Na and Abstract Rude, cats who represent the tip of the iceberg in terms of microphone control.

Honestly, I haven’t been able to stop listening to this album since I got it in the mail a week ago. So why is it that so many people refuse to acknowledge the brilliance in X-Clan’s music? Well, after listening to the album a couple times, I think I’ve figured it out. Maybe it’s because most people aren’t trying to hear what X-Clan is teaching.

Knowledge vs. Material
If there’s one topic that seems to stand out among the myriad issues discussed by Brother J throughout the course of “Return From Mecca,” it would have to be the internal battle of knowledge vs. material. As many of us know, we live in a world plagued by greed and financial aspirations. In light of this, Brother J often challenges his listener to recognize the importance of having wisdom over having riches in life.

You would think that hip-hop, a culture which gave birth to such philosophical knowledge as “Mo’ Money, Mo’ Problems,” wouldn’t be so concerned with bling or diamond-crested grills or fancy cars. Unfortunately, this is not the case. We seem to act like money is something that brings about happiness and self-worth, while wisdom is something that brings nothing tangible in life.

The whole debate makes me think about my man Socrates, the Greek philosopher widely credited with laying the foundation for Western philosophical thought. In Plato’s The Apology, Socrates was sentenced to death basically for questioning the hypocrisies of the ruling class and proving to the youth that the self-proclaimed intelligent upper class really knew nothing at all. I guess this pissed them off, so they decided to hang him. Their mentality was probably not too different from that of the upper-level Los Angeles police officers who reportedly played a role in the deaths of Christopher Wallace and Tupac Shakur.

In any case, before Socrates was put to death, he started contemplating the possibilities of consciousness after life, and came to two possible conclusions. First, death could be a state of “utter nothingness and unconsciousness” similar to being asleep without dreaming. Or second, death could be a “change and migration of the soul from this world to another” similar to what we refer to today as Heaven. Now if death was the first, Socrates believed that to be an “unspeakable gain” as eternity would pass in a single unconscious night. And if death was the second, Socrates felt that nothing could be better, as he would be given the opportunity to question and learn from the great minds that came before him, such as Orpheus, Musaeus, Hesiod or Homer.

Now whichever it is, having a lot of money in life ain’t helping you with either dogg. But wisdom and knowledge would undoubtedly help if death is indeed a migration to another realm of consciousness. Imagine being able to kick it with Biggie, Pac, J Dilla, Jam Master Jay or the recently and sadly deceased Professor X of the X-Clan in the afterlife. Imagine what insight they could give. You don’t honestly think any of those cats would be impressed with the jewelry or large bank account you left in the real world, do you? Nah, dogg . they’d probably want to know what was going on, what you did with your life, or what you learned from living. And if you had nothing intelligent to say, they wouldn’t even give you the time of day.

Now I ain’t trying to act all superior, because everybody needs money. So by all means get that. But realize that overcoming the battle of knowledge versus material and using your time to gain some kind of wisdom while you’re here could be the difference between a positive and a negative eternity. And I don’t know about you, but I definitely ain’t giving up my chance to kick it with the great minds of our generation for some bullshit material possessions.

So what’s my point? Read something motherfuckers! Get involved in our nation and our world. Bump some of that hip-hop that you can learn something from. And pick up a copy of X-Clan’s exceptional comeback album “Return From Mecca.” You never know, you might just learn something that could save you. Peace.