Abstract Mindstate - Dreams Still Inspire ALBUM REVIEW
Donda may not be out yet, but we have this instead.
For those that don’t know, Abstract Mindstate is a Mississippi duo comprising of EP da Hellcat and Olskool Ice-Gre that’s legendary for pushing the boundaries of underground hip-hop in the early 2000s. They haven’t put out a bunch of content, mainly because this is only their second album as a duo, their first coming out all the way back in 2001, titled We Paid Let Us In!. Now, we have Dreams Still Inspire, which is a pretty big deal for the underground. There’s another big part of this album that’s nabbing headlines: It’s produced entirely by Kanye West. For those that miss the old Kanye, this should grab your attention. So, let’s not waste any more time and get into Dreams Still Inspire.
I’m pretty sure that all the attention on this album is because of the presence of Kanye here, so I’ll touch on the production first. It reminds me a lot of the album that West produced for Nas in 2018, NASIR. There are a lot of chopped-up soul beats, and most of them are just okay. It didn’t do too much for me, sadly. Yes, they’re cool, but it just stops there. What I actually enjoyed was the vocals. They have great chemistry and both of them can flow over a beat pretty well. Along with that, the whole thing felt like an old-school boom-bap album that was put in a cryogenic chamber to be released in twenty years.
Well, I’m very glad I found out about this album. Dreams Still Inspire is a fun throwback to classic boom-bap albums from the late 90s/early 00s. EP da Hellcat and Olskool Ice-Gre as Abstract Mindstate seem like they’re staging a comeback, and this is a pretty good album to stage it with. This also interests me to check out their other work too.
7/10
Listen here
YouTube Music
Dreams Still Inspire is a YZY SND release.
For those that don’t know, Abstract Mindstate is a Mississippi duo comprising of EP da Hellcat and Olskool Ice-Gre that’s legendary for pushing the boundaries of underground hip-hop in the early 2000s. They haven’t put out a bunch of content, mainly because this is only their second album as a duo, their first coming out all the way back in 2001, titled We Paid Let Us In!. Now, we have Dreams Still Inspire, which is a pretty big deal for the underground. There’s another big part of this album that’s nabbing headlines: It’s produced entirely by Kanye West. For those that miss the old Kanye, this should grab your attention. So, let’s not waste any more time and get into Dreams Still Inspire.
I’m pretty sure that all the attention on this album is because of the presence of Kanye here, so I’ll touch on the production first. It reminds me a lot of the album that West produced for Nas in 2018, NASIR. There are a lot of chopped-up soul beats, and most of them are just okay. It didn’t do too much for me, sadly. Yes, they’re cool, but it just stops there. What I actually enjoyed was the vocals. They have great chemistry and both of them can flow over a beat pretty well. Along with that, the whole thing felt like an old-school boom-bap album that was put in a cryogenic chamber to be released in twenty years.
Well, I’m very glad I found out about this album. Dreams Still Inspire is a fun throwback to classic boom-bap albums from the late 90s/early 00s. EP da Hellcat and Olskool Ice-Gre as Abstract Mindstate seem like they’re staging a comeback, and this is a pretty good album to stage it with. This also interests me to check out their other work too.
7/10
Listen here
YouTube Music
Dreams Still Inspire is a YZY SND release.
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