Notes & Personnel Info |  | Personnel includes: Memphis Bleek, Carl Thomas, Jay-Z, Amil, Missy Elliot, Twista, H. Money Bags, Beanie Sigel. | | Producers include: Just Blaze, A Kid Called Roots, T.T., Robert "Shim" Kirkland, DJ Twinz. | | Engineers include: Gimel "Young Guru" Keaton, Pat Viala, Brian Stanley. | | Memphis Bleek's 1999 debut album COMING OF AGE, besides being the only hip-hop album of the year that didn't include any intentional misspellings in its title, signaled the rapper's emergence from the shadow of his more experienced mentor Jay-Z. THE UNDERSTANDING picks up where its predecessor left off. | | With his individual artistic status already satisfactorily established, Bleek is free to pursue his lyrical muse wherever it leads him. While his approach can't be said to have softened, Bleek does intersperse the thug-life themes with less overtly criminalistic scenarios. Though Jay-Z makes a few guest appearances on THE UNDERSTANDING, it's more as a peer paying his respects than a teacher keeping tabs on his student. |
|
| Rolling Stone (2/01/01, p.56)
- 3 stars out of 5 - "...Presents Bleek as a lavish-living lothario and throws in supersized servings of liquor, weed and guns for realness' sake. Still, Bleek is growing....[his rhymes] spread over blends of thunderous electrobump..."NME (Magazine)
(1/20/01, p.34)
- 7 out of 10 - "...Clubbers will revel in Memph's celebratory tales of the high life and memories of penury, set to crisp, futristic beats..." |
|
|
CD
