Little Brother, "Getback"

Little Brother
"Getback"
(ABB)

I've been sitting on this for about two weeks now. Yesterday, I took the GF to the airport and we bumped this album (because she likes the hip-hop, but it was also 6 a.m. so she probably wasn't too keen on listening to some Crooked I or Group Home) to get her amped for her trip.

I was a pretty huge fan of the LB's last official album, "The Minstrel Show." Even with all its flaws and people talking shit about 9th Wonder's beats, it was probably the best hip-hop album of 2004 (or was it 2005?). Even with the departure of 9th, "Getback" manages to steer Phonte and Big Pooh toward promising waters, offering up a whole album's worth of dope shit.

There are signature sounding Little Brother jams ("Breakin' My Heart" which features Lil' Wang), but there's also an early-90's influenced tune with "That Ain't Love," a vicious song that will overtake the Atmosphere standard of "emo-rap."

Despite the fact that, like most hip-hop albums, "Getback" is plagued with guests who aren't as good as Pooh or Phonte, it's still a pretty strong outing and I imagine as long as the dynamic between the two stay intact, Little Brother will still be putting out good records for a while.