Magestik Legend – The Great Escape
Exchange Bureau Music: 2010
Let’s cut through all the typical introductory fluff. Magestik Legend is an under the radar Detroit rapper who created some quality rap music with his latest release The Great Escape. Outside of two songs, the album is handled by Astronote, who produces dense drum sounds complimented by fully fleshed out samples and synth work. Though having that heavy Detroit boom-bap signature, The Great Escape is more reminiscent of early Cali 00s underground like Self-Scientific and Dilated Peoples, than say Elzhi or Black Milk. Magestik is a skilled emcee with terrestrial content moving through the areas of a dreamer, worker, father and lover. Guest like Guilty Simpson, DJ Rhetmatic, Buff1 and Hassan Mackey help color and flavor the album’s loose idea of transitioning in one’s life, but it’s completely commanded by Magestik Legend.
Unsurprisingly, the album’s strongest moments occur when beat wiz 14KT handles the production. “Eye Need You” and “Million Miles Away” are the most soulful and well crafted songs on The Great Escape that allow for Magestik’s pen to paint clear narratives for the listener’s mind. The latter, “Million Miles Away”, is a moody modern space-blues that articulates three difficult circumstances in Magestik’s life he wish could’ve turned out differently. He succinctly captures the mood with the second verse’s last line “Ohh you was talkin’ / my bad, I was day dreaming.” Another song “Scream”, the album opener, loops up The Coming-era Busta for the hook and is an eerie organ driven gutter moment that shows cases one of Magestik Legend’s more commanding mic moments. “Feel What I Feel” is another standout that has a thick as home-made syrup bassline and assisted with the quality verse from Fes Roc that will undeniably create the head-nod factor.
With that said The Great Escape’s biggest fault are its formalism and length. There is no need for an 18-track album from an up-and-coming emcee in these days and times. In particular there is no need for an 18-song album where each track pushes the four and five minute mark and it’s all verse-chorus-verse-chorus form. Magestik would have been better suited releasing a few of these songs as an EP, or freebies on his MySpace and Bandcamp. Not to add Magestik Legend is an emcee who seems would work more effectively within a group dynamic; verses, concepts, and songs just seem to blur into each other by album’s end. For some talents, simply said, less is more. Yet, Magestik Legend is a positive and talented soul who will undoubtedly win fans with this effort, who can escape their daily grinds with his voice and sound.
3 out of 5
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![Download: Magestik Legend - "All Eye Know" prod. Astronote [mp3]](http://potholesinmyblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/magestik-legends-150x150.jpg)
