Album: Manifesto
Producers: Inspectah Deck, J. Glaze, etc.
Release Date: March 23, 2010
Review: After starting off impeccably with Uncontrolled Substance and The Movement, Inspectah Deck dropped the slightly-less-awesome (but damn enjoyable) The Resident Patient. Four years later, he returns in 2010 with his fourth release, Manifesto. I think Deck is one of the strongest Wu emcees, alongside GZA, so I never fear when he puts out a new album.
Manifesto starts off with "Tombstone Intro" and "The Champion," both a bit slower than his previous efforts but still 100% real New York hip-hop. They're followed by "Born Survivor," which regularly uses sampled clips of a speech by President Barack Obama and features a guest spot by Cormega. However, the first real standout track to me is "This Is It." Produced by DTox, Deck opens strong: "I train like Leonidas's son, the fire and sun / The blood, sweat and tears grinding for ones / Nearly died for it, cried for it, hustle and flow / Right from the seed competing for my love of the dough." The funk influence on the music is clear and it helps hype the track, too.
Ms. Whitney sings the hook on the Deck-produced "Luv Letter," and her vocals and the complex bass guitar line are real standouts on the track. Up next is "P.S.A." with Lee Bannon behind the controls. The music is phat and dark ("The track's Godzilla" in Deck's own words) and some of Deck's rhymes are the stuff of dreams. "I'm wild like Clifton Powell, grammar tight / Like Vanna White hands flippin' the vowel / Give it up son, lift your towel, feels like the pits / Just missed off the bat, I'mma hit you foul." "We Get Down" also fares well - the pianos and hand claps work great behind Deck's rhymes, which sound as awake and lively overall as we hear in the first half of the record.
Raekwon appears on "The Big Game" and spits some classic style early on in his verse. "Revolvers with the lazy eye, late for my plate frame / You crazy fly, screw the tip off, jump in the baby I / More papers, law makers, all of us jaw breakers is on / Vaticans in action for all ages." "9th Chamber" is dark and divisive, with Deck splitting each line of his verse with...himself. After a couple listens I liked it a lot more than I did at first, so it's definitely a grower. Some fans may not be feeling it but I enjoyed the tone and the relentless lyrical onslaught even if they're not his flyest rhymes.
"Serious Rappin'" had me nervous with its melodramatic electric guitar, but the emcees make it much better - especially Deck, with lines like "I'm cold-blooded, like Rick in his time, you can see me prime-time / At the top spot sittin' with shine / I leave 'em froze like they sniffing a line, while they bitchin' and cryin' / You find me always in position to climb." Much like "T.R.U.E.," "Do What U Gotta" has some really engaging music, but its lyrics are much more live than "T.R.U.E." was. The same can be said for "Gotta Bang," which - like so many tracks on this album - are solid and listenable but don't have immediate standouts like Deck's previous efforts do.
By this point in the album, Deck has established a theme of street stories that strive less for coolness and more for realism, which is a running subject of The Movement. I can't say that I'm in love with Manifesto as much, but I appreciate that INS really seems to care about community, poverty, sociopolitical conflict and family. After a few more "good-but-not-great" tracks like "Brothaz Respect," the end of the album bounces back with "5-Star G." The music is live (flutes, picked electric guitar, sturdy drums etc) and the rhymes are fun and intrinsic: "Daddy king-size, with a mean stride / You ain't seen live, fuckin' with these guys / She fly on the G-side, sex is a weapon / There's a .357 in her Levi's."
Legacy: At the end of the day, Manifesto is just the least amazing of Deck's (at the time) four albums. It's great for putting on while working, playing a video game or driving, but it lacks the energy of his previous three and the magic of The Movement or Uncontrolled Substance. Fortunately, this seems to be his one exception - the first Czarface album was great and the second seems to follow in its footsteps (more on that next month), leaving Manifesto as the one sometimes-engaging, sometimes-sleepy record in INS's portfolio. And let me tell you, after seeing him live last year, he's still got as much energy and flow as he did the day he recorded his most famous verse - "Triumph."
Recommended Tracks: This Is It, PSA, We Get Down, Serious Rappin'.
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