I like the Black Keys. With previous projects featuring co-production by Danger Mouse, they had already flirted with the hip hop world before. Their current project titled BlakRoc was spearheaded and helped organized by Dame Dash. This album gets a huge cosign from me. The music is great, the cast of emcees are a good and sometimes an unexpected mesh, to include: Mos Def, Pharoahe Monch, Jim Jones, Raekwon, Q-Tip, RZA, Ludacris, O.D.B., Billy Danze (M.O.P.), singer Nikki Wray, and a newcomer MC by the name of NOE (who sounds exactly like Jay-Z :-/ ). The heavy bluesy vibe mixes well with smokey rhymes to create one of the best CD’s I’ve heard in a while. They have put up webisodes of each studio session for each track at www.blakroc.com. After watching them I was all the more attatched to the music.

Here is the webisode for Hoochie Coo with Mos Def and Jim Jones (Jones definitely surprised me on this project).

-AR.change.L = Art+Rhymes+Change+Life

“Long is the way and hard that out of hell leads up to light.-Milton”