St8 of The Un!on

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New music from ManKind, a duo featuring my nephew SciryL (aka Brian) and his rap partner, N8!.

It also features collaborations with four other artists -- Mandela Eskia, Ni-Emah Bugg, Silent Night, and KingFSorrow. You can listen online and DOWNLOAD THE ENTIRE ALBUM FOR FREE, but you can also contribute what you want to help them keep making music!

The album really captures the past year so well. The album is called "St8 of the Union." Political/insightful/no-holds barred/hopeful music with an eye toward looking at the troubled times we found ourselves in 2020.

Such intelligent political songs whose music really flows.

The group uses news clips at the beginning of most tracks gives the album a sense of chronicling a moment in time.

I loved the album, especially the flow from tracks 2 through 6. The music for those tracks (2 through 6) had me bopping my head up and down, especially "House Music." Love, love, love that track.

And "Squad" -- that was dynamic, fierce, incisive, hopeful. Really liked the place from which that came, and how celebratory it is of that progressive politic four women, particularly women of color bring.

Loved that they used a clip from AOC about white supremacy as the perfect lead-in for "Impeachment & Cream," which is probably my favorite rap of my nephew's on the album. I felt that one.

In general, re the raps, somehow they are both heavy and hopeful -- heavy because of how well they lay out that these are hellish times, but hopeful because there is this overriding sense of pushing forward through to seeing that it does not have to stay like this.

As I was listening, I was kind of taken back by the fact that this dual vibe had taken hold of me -- it was like my heart was beating with the craziness of where we are, but also I felt breathless (in a good way) that change can and will come.

Review by Tony Glover 1/25/2021