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Editor's note: ThaHipHop.Com has obtained permission from freelance journalist Oliver Wang to publish this review, whose first publication is concurrent with the release date below. I am honored and excited to have this review on the site and hope you will enjoy reading it. As with any other article on ThaHipHop.Com, this material cannot be duplicated or shared by any other site without expressed permission of the author. To know more about Oliver Wang, click here.  | Record Author(s): Dilated Peoples | | Record Title: The Platform | | Record Producer(s): Babu, E-Swift, Evidence, Joey Chavez, Kutmasta Kurt, T-Ray, The Alchemist | | Executive Producer(s): Dilated Peoples | | Release Date: May 23, 2000 |
Along with Jurassic 5, Dilated Peoples are the most potent hip-hop group to emerge out of L.A.'s underground in years. Bolstered by their smash single, Work the Angles (1998), the trio of Evidence, Iriscience and DJ Babu, have shown, time and time again, that they've mastered the formula for hard-hitting hip-hop - from their aggressive beat aesthetic to the abrasive braggadocio of their lyrics. Yet, while consistency is often a virtue, in the case of Dilated, they turn it into a fault and The Platform, for all its individual strengths, never hits any kind of synergy as an album. The funny thing is - any one song off the LP is likely to hit. Production by Evidence, Alchemist and Joey Chavez rocks a minimalist musical aesthetic, from the blaring tuba and svelte flutes on The Main Event, to the tic-toc rhythm pattern of The Shape of Things to Come to The Last Line of Defense with its dissonant, minor chord key stabs. As cliché as the term "head nod" gets, it seems all too appropriate for Dilated's songs as the bass reaches deep inside you to grab control. It certainly doesn't hurt to have DJ Babu in your ranks either as his agile hands parse scratch snippets into impossibly small fragments, all in synch with the master riddim. Lyrically, both MCs bring some heat, though Evidence's handicaps himself with an awkward, stilted flow and a reliance on punchlines. Iriscience feels more effortless on the mic as he slings slurs into the faces of lesser MCs. The problem is that listening to these hip-hop devotees talk about hip-hop is the musical equivalent to standing between two opposing mirrors. You get the sense of endless repetition and by half-way through The Platform, you start feeling that you've heard the same spiel already. The Platform is 16 songs dedicated to one thing, and one thing only, hip-hop as an art, but there's scant other attention paid to things outside of this narrow focus. There's no sense of anything beyond hip-hop and while every MC doesn't need to have some kind of transcendent message like a Mos Def or Common, even Dilated's predecessors like the Pharcyde and Freestyle Fellowship knew how to mix up the pacing and content of their albums. Since most hip-hop is naturally self-referential to itself, Dilated should be allowed some latitude in their single-mindedness, but ultimately, it still makes for an album of very limited scope. | So May I Introduce To You | | | | The Platform | |  | | No Retreat | w/ B Real | | | Guaranteed | | | | Right On | w/ Tha Alkaholiks | | | The Main Event | | | | Service | | | | Ear Drums Pop | | | | Years In The Making | | | | Annihilation | | | | Expanding Man | | | | The Last Line Of Defense | | | | Triple Optics | | | | The Shape Of Things To Come | w/ Aceyalone | | | Work The Angles | | | | Ear Drums Pop (Remix) | w/ Planet Asia, Defari, White E. Ford & Phil Tha Agony | |
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