#m.e.d

Thoughts On MED, Blu, & Madlib’s “Bad Neighbor”

I’m sure all of you guys reading this know the names of this project. You have Madlib, who by far is one of my favorite hip hop producers of all time, teaming with the likes of two great emcees, Blu and MED. I’m quite familiar with what each bring to the table and the thought of such a collab brought me to hype this project for myself.  Madlib had an amazing 2014 with the collab project with Freddie Gibbs on Pinata, easily on my top 3 albums of that year while bringing some stellar top notch production on Libs part. As for Blu, I was not really into his 2014 project, Good to Be Home, which I found to be an okay release for him (compared to the likes of Below the Heavens). I haven’t listened to a full length project by MED, but I do recall some tracks by him and impressive features, notably his feature on Madvillain’s Raid, so it was going to be interesting hear him out for 14 tracks. We have a team of great hip hop artist teaming up, so how did I think they do? I think they did pretty alright job actually. Overall, I feel Madlib takes an entirely new direction on some of his production while making it work for the most part. As a producer, you hear some of his usual sound be altered into some cool and unique instrumentals on here. At other times not so much, more distorted than enjoyable. I will say some of it didn’t work for me (His beat for Birds where he used a sample of chicken sounds and a drum was a bit dull and not enjoyable for Madlib , and the altering of who I think is Blu on Peroxide was annoying), his production overall was enjoyable (Drive In, The Stroll, Belly Full, Burgundy Whip, and Knock Knock being some of my favorite beats on here). I found his darker and more ominous beats to be his downfall and his more jazzy and colorful production to be his pros on here. On the rapping side if things, Blu and MED don’t leave me anything too memorable lyrically or are out shined by the beats of Madlib. Not to mention you can barely hear them on the tracks which can be due to the mixing of vocals and beats. Their presence didn’t add anything to the experience but their voices. A majority of the time I was unsure of what they were saying and when I did, it was nothing I would take away from it aside from some story telling based on the song. Was not impressed by them sadly. The features were also nothing too special. You can have nice vocalist features such as Jimetta Rose and Aloe Blacc who really add to Libs production, a nice verse spat by DOOM on Knock Knock, and the rest was lacking. Anderson .Pakk while sounding great as a feature on Dre’s album Compton, he does not deliver the same intensity on here, AMG had a really lackluster verse, I didn’t enjoy the DJ features, and the rest was okay. I really wanted to love this project and I’m a big fan of their work as mentioned before, but they brought something that did not equate to what I wanted/expected for the good. It was okay.

Rating: 3 / 5

Favorite Tracks:  Drive In, The Stroll (instrumentally), Belly Full, Burgundy Whip, Knock Knock

.@meda4oxx x .@Madlib x Blu(.@HerFavColor) ft. Phonte(.@phontigallo) x Likewise(.@CallMeLike)“Finer Things” 

M.E.D - Flying High