Hidden Beach
2007
Never Forget: A Journey Of Revelations
About This Album
The thought and purpose behind the second album by Dr. Cornel West, professor of religion and member of the African-American Studies Department at Princeton, is certainly an important, even noble one: reclaim hip-hop as a progressive political and artistic tool for the black community. Rap music, like blues and jazz before it, evolved from an expression of the social conditions that impacted African-Americans, and grew from there into the megalith it is today, and its effect on youth is apparent. So he gathered up a fairly impressive roster of forward-thinking black musicians and set to work on Never Forget: A Journey of Revelations, a collection of 16 tracks that aims to explore and address ideas and problems that relate specifically to the aforementioned situation. And it is in fact this roster -- Prince, M1 from Dead Prez, Jill Scott, Talib Kweli, Black Thought from the Roots, KRS-One, and André 3000 being the most notable members -- that makes the record an actual musical accomplishment. Because despite Dr. West's intentions, and his ideas, his talents as a rapper are fairly limited, and his verbal contributions end up being some of the weaker points on the record. It is also most assuredly because of this that he shows up in a rather limited capacity, adding intermittent thoughts and introductions but letting the vocalists go off on their own.
Track List (try tracks 1,2,3,4,7,10,11 and 12)

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