Cunninlynguists – A Piece of Strange (2006)

While I have a nice sized collection of music (all sorts, not just Hip Hop), I am constantly being reminded of how many huge holes there are in my collection. This time around while practicing two lost arts I found another gaping hole. The lost arts by the way are:

• Buying CDs in a store
• Buying a CD in a store on a whim based on the cover (something that was a common practice for me in my younger days)

What I found was CunninLynguists third album titled A Piece of Strange (01/24/2006) by Deacon The Villain (MC), Natti (MC) and Kno (DJ/Producer). Everything about this album is near perfection for me. It is well concepted, fluid, perfect in length and so many other things that have deemed it the only album I’ve been playing for the past few days. The album is in fact a concept album that, “follows the story of a man and those closest to him in their struggles with right and wrong, love and hate, faith and sin.” And it is for this reason that I will also say that the album is beautiful.

While I’d heard of CunninLynguists before and seen albums on HipHopsite.com, and sandboxautomatic, I’m sad to admit that I always passed them up. That was dumb, but I made up for it by peeping the remaining catalog (or what I could get my hands on from amazon…so much for instant gratification), and I have to say that while their music has been fire from the first album, Will Rap For Food, it has evolved into something even better over time. Their whole catalog seems to be the poster-child for the evolution of a group, their music and a genre (hip-hop says, “thank you”).

What’s even better is the fact that they have a new album slated for a November release (11/27/2007) titled, Dirty Acres. Of course the promo is floating around on the net, and the buzz is that it’ll be album of the year for all heads in the know (even talk of it beating out Blu & Exile?!?). Don’t wait until then to hear them though, head out now and cop some of their older albums, or at least visit them at their myspace.

The Gates (featuring Tonedeff)

Never Know Why (featuring Immortal Technique)

The Light (featuring Club Dub)