DJ solo records must be an easy sell. Every beatmaker has a bushel of material just lying around their hard drive. Good work, usually with sturdy bones, and inspired by degree, but languishing derelict in a state of rough repose. Pitching these loops to their friends is a good way of creating the conditions necessary to drag some of them across the finish line. They pitch some beats, their friends like them, those friends drop some bars, they polish the product and ship. Their fans buy it. The MC's friends buy it. DJ wins. MC wins. Fans win. Everyone feels like they get a little something for themselves. However, Canadian spindoctor Dj Unknown's third solo LP feels more intentional than the ram-shackle process I've described. Prisoners of Gravity doesn't give off the impression that it is limited by any mundane considerations of shoveling out a product or giving one's friends something to call up their press agent about. Every track feels crafted in a conscious manner to elevate the character of the MC's flow and approach. I'm fresh to all of these rhyme-misters and yet after hearing the dystopic "Stranger Than Fiction" and the Shaolin stalk of "Silent Weapons for Quiet Wars" (just by way of example), I feel like I could hold down a decent conversation with either Noah23 and Raz Fresco if I were to run into them at a bar somewhere. Noah23 with his deep-cut sci-fi references, and Raz with his guarded confessional mantras, offer me insights into their minds and personalities while decisively demonstrating their skills as genuine people as well as warriors school in the cutting quality of a well-turned phrase. The soulful, ruminative and delicately calibrated production provided by Dj Unknown allows each number on this album to become a personal statement by the guest artist while showing off the clear extent of the care with which he prusues in his craft. Neither Dj Unknown nor his collaborators are confined by any of the material they approach on this record short of the outer limits of their own imaginations.
