Moe Pope
Life After God
Although Moe Pope is certainly not a new name in the underground hip-hop world, it seems that only recently is the Boston-bred emcee beginning to get a bit of the attention he deserves. Blame it on shaky record deals. Blame it on under-funded marketing campaigns. Blame it on anything but Moe Pope and his skills as an emcee. Life After God is quite simply another album in Moe’s catalogue that wholly devastates just about 90 percent of Moe’s contemporaries.
Take “Foolish” for example. Moe waxes fake emcees, dictating a verbal clinic on how to properly rock a microphone. It’s an aggressive assertion that an emcee of Moe’s stature – a modest 5’9” with unassuming swag – can instruct a legion of underground hip-hoppers on their very own craft. But more importantly, it is an assertion of self-assurance. Moe knows that his skills warrant more attention.
In a way, Life After God is a bleak, post-apocalyptic urban escapade into hip-hop. Tracks such as “Amy Winehouse” and “City Lights” may play mellow, but actually reveal dark realizations about the inner-city as seen through the eyes of Moe Pope, Edo G, Christopher Talken and Maestro1ton. However, the album doesn’t truly stick to this theme from start to finish. Instead, Life After God may be better viewed as a homage to hip-hop’s true-schoolers.
Producer Rain provides Moe with an update on traditional boom-bap. Toying with eclectic samples and live instrumentation (the recurring horns sustain a supremely enjoyable warmth), Rain crafts a colorful palette of tracks that seem to amplify Moe’s creativity and insight. Furthermore, at just 40 minutes in length, Life After God is paced with great precision with the assistance of a few smooth interludes. Most notably, the decision to not place parts one and two of “Rock Me” back-to-back is brilliant as it allows the album to breathe, while tying in a cohesive element from the album’s first half to the second.
Life After God is a bold statement, and may come off a bit cocky to those who aren’t familiar with Moe’s past, but it’s important to understand that he has more than paid his dues. The lyrical intricacy and intelligence is on such a level here that Moe’s boasts are less for big-upping himself, and more simply just stating the truth. Open your ears. This is what it sounds like when an emcee rips.
Moe Pope is the best rapper you dont know! Life After God is the best album of 2010