Rating:
  Review Date: May 9, 2007
  Website: Presence Website
  Label: Indie

Presence “Ready Your Ears” Album Review
I ain’t going to lie to you homie … I ain’t as cool as I used to be. Not to these hip-hop kids anyway. Two years ago, when this website was getting no traffic, no love and no props whatsoever, I would show up at underground events and open mic nights begging cats to give me their albums for review. No matter how wack you were, I would introduce myself, try to up my website, and write a review for your album just so you and your crew might start visiting the site.  

Fortunately for me, the situation has changed. The site is growing well, getting good traffic and responses, and moving up the ladder quite nicely. Shit, I’d even be making a little cash if my dumb ass wasn’t too proud to accept advertising offers from bling-blinded hip-hop jewelry stores or thugged-out urban clothing companies.

But unfortunately for hip-hoppers, I’m no longer willing to approach artists at shows about reviews. After all, I’m getting more and more albums in the mail every day now, and I don’t have time to review all of those, much less to go hollering at some cats who never sent an album in at all. So these days, I’m that cat standing in the corner at shows, not wanting to be bothered by artists looking for me to review their music. And the only way I’m approaching someone about a review is if they got some serious skills.

Well, that happened recently. A couple Wednesdays ago, I went down to Nightingale Lounge in East Village, NYC to see a live performance from one of my favorite underground acts Spokinn Movement. In the middle of their performance, the band invited an emcee named Presence up to do a song with the group’s front man Illspokinn, who is in my opinion one of the dopest lyricists in the underground. To my surprise, Presence stood toe to toe with Illspokinn on the mic, as the two flipped rhymes back and forth in an impressive array of live verbal speed, skill and dexterity.

It actually kinda pissed me off yo, because in the back of my mind all I could think was, “Damn, now I’m gonna have to ask that motherfucker for his album too.” And my endless stack received yet another CD.

Lyrical Feng Shui
Nonetheless, that CD was off the hook. Presence’s “Ready Your Ears” is a comprehensive underground release that boasts an impressive array of lyrics and delivery, content and personality, and sound and head-nodding production. Over beats that draw inspiration from hip-hop, funk, rhythm and blues, and even rock and roll, Presence showcases crazy verbal skills, jumping from track to track in a manner so fitting and comfortable that it makes one understand why in one track he refers to his rhyming as “lyrical feng shui.”

Feng shui is the ancient Chinese practice of placing and arranging space to achieve harmony with the environment. Although used as a decorating style, feng shui is believed to have the ability to improve the human condition by balancing a person’s inner energy, or Qi, via the manipulation of wind and water, which carry and retain the energy of the universe. In other words, a person’s energy can either deplete from or add to the energy of the universe, and manipulating the things surrounding you using good feng shui might just help improve your Qi and bring you in closer relation to the universe.

I guess that means that “lyrical feng shui” would be the practice of arranging words and rhymes over a beat in a way that replenishes or reinvigorates the listener’s inner energy and connection with his surroundings. To me, this means that by listening to good hip-hop, we can improve the human condition and come to a greater understanding of the world around us. A little far stretched, but it sounds reasonable enough to me homie.

Either way, I’d say give it a try. Pick up a copy of Presence’s “Ready Your Ears,” adjust the furniture of your apartment in a way that makes you comfortable, and sit back and relax. You never know, it might just help you improve you Qi. Peace.