While I slowly work through a larger-than-usual list of music, I've found myself cheating my system to come back and relisten to this album before its turn. The opening Baldwin quotation sets up a context of both poetic telling and knowing and critical engagement. The music proceeds to live up to its introduction, springing from traditions of rap, hip-hop, jazz, poetry proper and poetics more broadly to think through and connect the personal and social. And it sounds great. And there's fun. get