2008 has seen a slew of great instrumental hip hop releases (Flying Lotus, Metaform, Blue Sky Black Death, PSY/OPSogist, Clutchy Hopkins), however there really has been a dearth of good albums put out by emcee's this year.Curtis Cross, the 25 year old rapper/producer who goes by Black Milk, has been the excpetion. With 6 releases this year, Cross has not let his prolific rate of production effect the quality of his releases.
Contributing as a producer to Slum Village's second album, Cross has since gone on to work with everyone from Lloyd Banks, to Pharoahe Monch. His brightest moments have come with his work with fellow Detroit underground hip hop artists though. His production on Elzhi's "The Preface", Fat Ray's "The Set Up", and Sean Price and Guilty Simpson's "Random Axe" builds upon the soul based, cut and paste sample, production style of his greatest influence, the late J Dilla. In these albums we see Cross trying to get back to where one producer creates a unique aesthetic for an album, rather than having a different producer on each track. The crashing drums, and "raw" east coast like production style (in the same vein as rza for example) are great on their own, but that coupled with a more focused approach to making a hip hop album really sets him apart from the rest of the hip hop scene in 2008.
Even though production is where Cross started, and has been acclaimed, his emcee abilites are far from lackluster. "Tronic", his second full fledged solo album, sees himself capably carrying the vast majority of the emcee duties. With influences ranging from sly and the family stone, to a tribe called quest "Tronic" is far and away the best rap album of the year. Cross has established himself as not only the leader of the burgeoning underground rap scene in Detroit, but as one of the preeminent hip hop artists today.
Download: http://rapidshare.com/files/175396119/Black_Milk-Tronic-2008-.zip.html
Great video from 2006 of Black Milk creating a great beat on the spot in about 15 minutes:
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