Ghetto Cat Productions

p r o u d l y   p r e s e n t s ..::

Artist   | Eyedea & Abilities
Title    | First Born

Genre    | Hip-Hop
Source   | CDDA
Format   | Album
Label    | Rhymesayers Entertainment
Catalog  | RS0022-2
Released | 2001
Ripped   | 2020

Quality  | 285 kbps avg at 44.1 kHz
Encoder  | Lame 3.100 V0
Size     | 150.23 MB

eh about this release

R E L E A S E   I N F O R M A T I O N

A member of the enormously promising Rhymesayers collective, Eyedea
attracted considerable media attention when he won the 2000 Blaze
Battle on HBO. While the Midwestern rapper's charisma, good looks,
and Caucasian heritage would seem to make him a natural contender
for Eminem's throne, Eyedea's esoteric lyrics pretty much ensure
that he won't pop up on Total Request Live any time soon. As his
Blaze Battle victory proves, Eyedea is no slouch when it comes to
verbally humiliating substandard MCs, but if First Born is any
indication, his foremost battles are philosophical and intellectual.
Like fellow Rhymesayer Slug (of Atmosphere), Eyedea explores a
distinctly Midwestern brand of American gothic, where Vietnam
veterans relive the war in a perpetual loop, and where every
adolescence is unhappy in its own unique way. But where Slug
sweetens his neuroses with melodic, accessible beats and
self-deprecating humor, Eyedea pushes his urgent, dense lyrics into
darker, more abstract places, obsessing over madness, reality, and
altered states of perception over spare, haunting beats and DJ
Abilities' furious scratching. At their best, Eyedea's intelligence
and endless philosophical wanderings point the way toward a
cerebral, ambitious new style of hip-hop that emphasizes questions
over answers, ambiguity over certainty, and self-expression over
commercial concerns. At its worst, First Born feels like the hip-hop
equivalent of being cornered at a party by a caffeinated
undergraduate who won't shut up about this great philosophy class
he's taking. The album's high-minded excursions into the realm of
being and nothingness periodically lurch into navel-gazing
self-parody, but Eyedea's passionate delivery and lyrical skills
keep the disc grounded. With First Born, Eyedea and the Rhymesayers
collective continue to rewrite hip-hop in their own iconoclastic
image. The results may occasionally err on the side of pretension,
but that's a small price to pay for an album so rich in ambition,
ideas, and humanity.

The titles of tracks 5, 13, and 18 are not printed on the back
cover, but are taken from the vinyl hubs of the nearly-identical
3xLP version of this release.

::t r a c k  l i s t  :::

01. One                                                                 2:35
02. Music, Music                                                        4:40
03. Birth Of A Fish...                                                  2:09
04. ...Powdered Water Too (Part 1)                                      3:03
05. ...Powdered Water Too (Part 2)                                      3:23
06. Color My World Mine                                                 5:57
07. Liquid Sovereignty                                                  5:30
08. A Murder Of Memories                                                4:58
09. Blindly Firing                                                      3:46
10. Big Shots                                                           3:50
11. Void (Internal Theory)                                              2:14
12. The Dive (Part 1)                                                   4:13
13. The Dive (Part 2)                                                   5:13
14. Well Being                                                          3:09
15. Read Wiped In Blue                                                  5:08
16. Void (External Theory)                                              1:14
17. On This I Stand                                                     5:28
18. Before And After (Feat. Blueprint)                                  3:40

70:10

and then we chill

Special Thanks to DSP CMS FTD KrbZ JCE FuFFeNS IGR iMPG diss
and all rippers that have and continue to rip quality music.

aSC' fairchild o4, 11