Rating:
  Review Date: October 16, 2007
  Website: BMWMB Website
  Label: Hidden Beach Recordings

Cornel West “Never Forget: A Journey of Revelations” Album Review
I’ve been looking forward to this album for quite some time now. Dr. Cornel West is one of those people I could just sit and listen to all day. I believe Dr. West is the premiere scholar, thinker and philosopher of our time – and the best older representative the hip-hop generation can currently claim. I agree with pretty much everything he’s ever written or said, and I expected his hip-hop album to be no different.

What I didn’t expect, however, was that the album was going to be this good musically. But I guess if your collaborators include hip-hop and musical legends such as Talib Kweli, Black Thought, Prince, KRS-One, M-1, Andre 3000, Jill Scott, Gerald Levert, and a handful of other brilliant musicians, your music is going to come out good. Cornel West & Black Men Who Mean Business (BMWMB) have put together the best hip-hop compilation album of the year in “Never Forget: A Journey of Revelations.”

While I could go on and on with quotable verses from Kweli, Thought, KRS-One, M-1 and Andre 3000, all of whom demonstrated their lyrical superiority on this project, it was Dr. West’s spoken word contributions that really made the biggest impact on me in “Never Forget.” From the beginning of the album, Dr. West made it clear that his intention was to represent the real hip-hop that is hidden from the eyes of mainstream America. In the album’s first track, Bushonomics, Dr. West demonstrates this goal to the listener:

We’re taking hip-hop back to its roots when the people could see
That the hip in hip-hop stood for we want to be free
We go from the bling bling
To let freedom ring
From the rich legacy of Gil Scott-Heron and The Last Poets
On to Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five
In this era of Bushonomics

Conscious Hip-Hop
From there on out, Dr. West compiles a series of songs that seem to hit every aspect of intellectual and thought-provoking conscious hip-hop. Several tracks, such as Bushonomics, America (400 Years), Dear Mr. Man, Mr. President, and Man Gonna Getcha, take heavy political and social stances on topics such as George Bush’s reign of terror, the Iraq war, the state of New Orleans, poverty, homophobia, materialism, white supremacy, domestic violence, police brutality, and environmental justice, among others. The following verse from the reprise of America (400 Years) allows Dr. West to tackle several of these topics:

We got to have personal responsibility
Political accountability
And corporate culpability
We must eliminate poverty
I don’t care what color the person or child
We got to stop bashing these gay brothers and lesbian sisters
And let them live a life of dignity
Do away with this domestic violence
So brothers don’t come home and beat their girls and wives
Because they scapegoat the most vulnerable a
And not confront the most powerful
We must have ecological and environmental justice
To make sure this toxic waste
Is not in black neighborhoods and hoods

Other tracks took more of a community perspective by revolving around social and psychological issues affecting people today. Still Here, Keeping It P.I., Welcome to the CHI, and Everything Gone Be Alright are tracks that encourage the listener to stay positive through the struggles he or she might face. Soul Sista and What A Matter Of are ballads dedicated to women, love and parental influences. And Chronomentrophobia and What Time It Is demonstrate a more philosophical type of hip-hop in which questions are asked about life and existence. The following verse from Chronomentrophobia allows Dr. West to somewhat existentially question the manner in which we use our time:

What does it really mean to be human?
What does it really mean to be featherless two-legged linguistically conscious creatures
Born between urine and feces
Whose bodies will soon be the culinary delight of terrestrial worms, my brother?
The death sentence of time and space
That no one of us getting outside of space and time alive
Who will would be?
In the meantime how would we use our time?
Or will time use us?
It is time to come to terms with time

Add in two tracks in which Dr. West simply speaks, one alongside Tavis Smiley and Michael Eric Dyson, and “Never Forget: A Journey of Revelations” becomes a comprehensive album that blends conscious hip-hop, personal heartfelt topics and philosophical thought into one innovatively brilliant compilation. Whether you’re a fan who already knows the truth or someone blinded by society’s lies about hip-hop music and culture, you need to pick up a copy of this album. It is yet another spectacular accomplishment by Dr. Cornel West and conscious hip-hop culture. Peace.

Album Track Listing:

1. Bushonomics feat. Talib Kweli
2. America (400 Years) feat. Black Thought, Rah Digga, Iriz, Lucky Witherspoon
3. Still Here feat. Ambassador and Paul Woodruff
4. Dear Mr. Man feat. Prince
5. 911
6. The N Word feat. Tavis Smiley and Michael Eric Dyson
7. Welcome to the Chi feat. Rhymefest, Malik Yusef and Neo Abyss
8. Mr. President feat. KRS-One and M-1
9. Keeping it P.I. feat. Lucky Witherspoon, Doey Rock and Killer Mike
10. Chronomentrophobia feat. Andre 3000
11. What Time It Is feat. Jill Scott
12. Soul Sista feat. Darryl Moore
13. America (400 Years) Reprise
14. Everything Gone Be Alright feat. Dave Hollister and Chuckii Booker
15. Man Gona Getcha feat. Gerald Levert and Waynee Wayne
16. What A Matter Of feat. Lenny Williams