Every hip-hop CD has shout-outs. Beatmaker Pablo, providing one of the many Digitek differences, actually throws down some fuck yous to the USA and "its rogue clients for fucking up this beautiful planet (UK included -- shame on you Blair!)." There are many hip-pop faces who have shown a lot of carefully planned angst, of course, but only after thanking Beyoncé and everybody in music who voted for Bush in the first place. In addition, not too many groups of any genre would bring in a doctor of astrophysics to explain string theory, a complex scientific idea related to the origin of the universe. That's some high brow shit. The beats show a lot of effort went into their construction with essential programming variation and influence as opposed to the 50 Cent norm of resting on the same old basslines and samples from a catalogue. It's as if Dr. Dre up and decided to treat hip-hop like music again for the first time since 1999's 2001, but of course he has no reason whatsoever to do such a thing, so we're lucky there are still people like the Digitek crew around. Every track here is just as hard hitting as anything Aftermath and Interscope has shat out since then, except Digitek contains the crucial diversity of an inspired group that actually has real opinions -- which is rare in more commercial sounding music these days. But is the US ready for drum and bass MCs rapping over beats that truly are menacing as opposed to just claiming to be let alone from a group that mocks the fundamentalist's cherished World Police? Well, Michael Moore, Jello Biafra, and Hunter Thompson still live there, so there has to be at least a small market for them. Finding it will be the test. "Set_Wrecka" is without a doubt one of the most unique hip-hop tracks of the year, setting ominous strings and a worrying piano over a skittery double bass beat. I'd really like to see the Digitek collective pursue this electro direction more and see about grunging up the synthetic sound a bit in the future. Although Keep The World Guessin' is pretty solid, I believe they're capable of making a much more experimental, just plain cooler album.
1. Dawn Of The Tek (Intro)
2. Nod_Hedz
3. Set_Wrecka
4. Blazini
5. Clipper Ripper
6. Jungle
7. Souf Coast Radio (Skit)
8. Cyaan Do Dat
9. Downlow
10. 4Warda
11. Scientifical Intro
12. Scientifical
13. Suiink
14. Delirious Gasses
15. Y?
16. Ras (Skit)
17. TekRok
More about: Digitek
