The Best Rap Album of the Year

This is simply an excellent rap album. I bought it despite its enlarged size, wincing at the price of two cd's, and let me tell you, "Full Clip" has not let me down. So many other double rap albums these days don't measure up to full expectations, and allowances must be made for the inevitable dull tracks which pop up in the "two cd's that could easily have been one" syndrome. This is not the case with Gang Starr.

There is not a single wasted song on this double album with a decade's worth of hits. The only weakness in this testament to great talent is the very slight lack of variety in subject matter. Perhaps once too often, I heard variation of statements like "I've been in this game forever, since you were a child, etc." or "I'm the intellectual rapper."

But this is the case in one way or another in almost every rap album I've ever heard. Certainly, the two members of Gang Starr outweigh any evidence of repetition of ideology with the funky pump of their super beats, their crafty rhymes, and their genuine innovation on songs like "Jazz Thing" and "Mass Appeal." This is really a delicious double album.