[What's been getting spins in your CD player or tape deck? Here's a look at what's been getting play in ours...]
By – Dank Lucas
The word “green” is closely related to the Old English verb growan meaning “to grow” – and that is exactly what Pacewon and Mr. Green do on their 2008 banger The Only Color That Matters Is Green.
Pace debuted his penchant for slick rhymes and beat-riding on The Fugees’ classic album The Score where he traded bars with Wyclef at the beginning of “Cowboys” (you know, “…Olayheee”). Since then he has made noise with his crew The Outsidaz. But his current teaming with fellow New Jersey rep/producer Mr. Green has Pacewon’s lyrical red dot aimed at your speakers.
The album, released June 16 of last year, opens with a sincere journal entry (“Four Quarters”) that immediately lets you know that this ain’t no Outsidaz album, that this is a whole new Pace and Mr. Green filled with east coast boom-bap supplied over a hell of a head-nodding canvas for the emcee to grow on. After explaining his teaming with Mr. Green, Pace muses about his neighborhood’s dilemmas and gives us hope with the chorus “let’s get together, four quarters make a dollar…it takes a whole community for us to raise a scholar.”
The album moves on to let Mr. Green take center stage with the beat for “Children Sing”. The sample chop here is as infectious as any I’ve heard over the past year. And Pace’s rhymes about his present state of life contain a positive impression for the future of what’s missing in much of today’s hip hop.
I can’t reiterate enough on the topic of growth when discussing this album. My favorite track, “The Eye of a Needle”, contains a humility and egoless interpretation of his craft usually reserved for an emcee such as Atmosphere’s Slug or Joe Budden. Other standout tracks include “She Can Be So Cold”, a story about a creeping chick over a White Stripes sample, and “So Straight”, where Pace tells us “it’s ok” over a beat that lets him tell his story without getting in the way.
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