Brooklyn rapper/producer Tes’ whiny delivery may be an acquired taste, but once in, the listener is richly rewarded with 12 tracks of sharply intelligent and highly addictive hip hop. “New New York” is notable for being a post-9/11 address that avoids mawkishness, while “Fooltime” tackles the more mundane subject of shitty day jobs (“Fooltime, but I can’t break free/Time spent racing rats running laps of luxury”). Tes drops in his samples with a spare, dub-like delicacy, leaving wide open spaces through which to access his lyrical meditations on the urban treadmill.
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