BY BANDINI • OCTOBER 26, 2018

Life is too short to listen to bad music. So…let AFH fight through it for you and only supply you with that great stuff. Despite the reports, Hip-Hop is alive and well and, in many ways, is better than it’s ever been. Not only are we able to go back and listen to all of our favorites, at the click of a button, there is also a ton of great music still being made by artists, young and veteran alike…if you know where to look. To help with that task, we’ve created a playlists with recent music—songs that have been released within the last year or so. We update it regularly, so, if you like what you hear, subscribe to follow us on Spotify.

Moments ago, the Black Eyed Peas released Masters Of The Sun, Volume 1. It serves as (the now) trio’s first album in eight years. This Interscope Records release marks a return to form for will.i.am, apl.de.ap, and Taboo, calling back to their late ’90s style. The Los Angeles, California group returns to its core Hip-Hop sound with a star-studded standout track, “ALL AROUND THE WORLD.” Recorded ahead of Phife’s tragic 2016 passing, the song begins, “You are now tuned in to the sounds of A Tribe Called De La Peas.” That’s a bold statement. However, the song features Phifer and also credits Ali Shaheed Muhammad of A Tribe Called Quest as well as Posdnuos from De La Soul. With “keep bouncing” and a reworking of Tribe’s “Award Tour” chorus, this song is a stylish homage to the great Hip-Hop of the early 1990s. An energetic Phife begins the song. “We on that award tour with Muhammad again / Fifty-city run, with Black Eyed Peas and them / First show in T-dot where the shorties be gems / Twenty-thou’, losin’ they minds, as we recite these hymns,” he begins, flipping Q-Tip’s delivery from the beloved Midnight Marauders birthed in ’93. Shouting out the Natives, the 5-Foot-Assassin spits, “Twenty-five years later, ain’t too much done changed, B / Owner of three homes with my eyes on a Bentley / Tribe support system, I could never be shady / Me cheat the game? What I look like, Brady?” Phife, who shouts out Steph Curry and Kyrie Irving alongside his New England Patriots jab, was an avid sports fan. He also reworks MC Shan’s parting line from “The Bridge.”

Over punchy drums, the Peas rhyme next about Hip-Hop. In his part, will.i.am references Star Wars in a series of bars that challenge “mumble rappers” to step up their bars. Phife assists in the chorus. With a bit of extra rasp in his voice, Plug 1 shows off a compound rhyme structure: “I am not of this format, so let me formally introduce to you a formula, standing on your doormat / I’m an East Coast equation, qualified to earn it worldwide, running through your tour laps.” Keeping the tour theme at play, Posdnuos raps about traveling the world to avoid freezing temperatures and take his sound the furthest. As the beat shifts, he also weaves in a lyrical reference to former Tommy Boy Records label-mate Digital Underground’s “Same Song.” Notably, the “now they ask me if they can kiss me” part that Pos’ uses belongs to Tupac, who had a complicated relationship with De La 25 years ago. This go-round, it’s all love and respect. To keep things bouncing, the beat enters a new, third dimension following Pos’ part of the song. Masters Of The Sun, Volume 1 also features Nas (on a song paying homage to Soul II Soul’s “Back To Life”), and Slick Rick.

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