It seems that with regular ailments such as bills, stress at work, frustrations with family, it becomes easy to not notice the things that are going well in your life. It's no different with the music world. After all the complaining about inconsistent artists and crappy material on the radio, it's absolutely refreshing to find an artist that you can count on for great quality material. These are some of the praises that I reserve for Akrobatik as he once again comes with top-notch boom bap hip-hop music with his latest effort, Absolute Value.

It seems that every dope producer in the game is featured on this project: from the likes of Illmind to Dilla with Put Ya Stamp On It featuring Talib Kweli. The two engage back-to-back having you wonder if Ak and Kweli could become a duo with similar impact as a Black Star.

Ak's guest appearances seem to work well throughout the album like his Perceptionists partner Mr. Lif on Beast Mode or the 9th Wonder-produced Little Brother-assisted Be Prepared (featuring yet another show stealing verse from Phonte).

But don't get it twisted. Ak is the star of the show and is most exhilarating when he's able to flex his muscle by his lonesome. The infectious Soul Glo shows a confident emcee at the top of his craft casually taking jabs at the people that don't do the art of emceeing much justice.

Ultimately the album is a solid package. As he confesses in the liner notes, "even though [his] name is on the cover, [the album] belongs to everyone involved." It shows that this is what we can expect when people work on making a great project as opposed to your simple ringtone single. So, for a culture where we never give props (since we're sooo hard core), it's time to salute an emcee that brings it every time.