None Shall Pass
On his latest album, None Shall Pass, Aesop Rock's most distinguishable characteristic, his relentless verbosity, shows no signs of slowing for anyone-- be it the mainstream, the uninitiated, or even fans who couldn't keep up with Bazooka Tooth.
Play an Aesop Rock song straight through, or start in the middle and listen to the first half later, and it'll make the same amount of sense. Rock's new album, None Shall Pass, works the same way. This hour of hip-hop defines itself as a mess of parts: Rock's speed-shifting delivery, lyrics that deliberately tangle,…
Aesop Rock has been impressing the backpacker crowd with his intricate lyrics and dark, dirty, melodic production ever since he self-released Music for Earthworms back in 1997, helping to define the East Coast underground scene and validate the presence of white rappers.
Aesop’s indomitable presence and knotty co-production with Blockhead and El-P make what he says incidental to how he says it.
At a time when hip-hop is saying, literally next to nothing (“Crank dat Soulja Boy?”), Aesop Rock is still cramming more words (and big ones at that)...