Album Review “His Own Self” By J-Live

“His Own Self” is a journey through the mind and life of J-Live the person, the man.   Beginning with the powerful intro “Peace, Be Still” this 11 track album plays a like a gift from the Heart of Hip Hop. From the powerful drums to the colorful melodies blended with J-Live’s expertly crafted rhymes “His Own Self” serves as an lesson to aspiring MCs on how it’s done.  The messages contained in this work include knowledge of self, respect and social awareness.

This album is put together as a cohesive piece that should be played all the way through, but I would be “fakin the funk” if I didn’t go over the tracks that stood out to me.  Let me say this again no skips on this joint!  On “Mic Singletary” an ode to hard hitting Hip Hop and the hard hitting former NFL Star J-Live flexes his lyrical muscles over the menacing instrumental.  If anybody knows the NFL heads that do pregame production tell em this song needs to be on the pregame hype montage or call EA sports and put this in the next Madden game.  “I Am A Man”  (American Justice) is a joint that sticks to my brain due to all of the police brutality being brought to light in the last year.  This stuff has been happening all along and J-Live knows all too well that it is institutional.  This track kicks deep knowledge on the “system” and the issues we deal with today.  If you put this song on a tape and sent it back in a time machine to 95 it would be just as relevant.  Lets hope this isn’t true in 2035.

To wrap it up the outro “The Greatest Thing” is a jazzy offering with smooth percussion and no vocals.  This is J-Live dropping the mic and walking off stage triumphantly with the title belt as we all take a few minutes and ask did this really just happen?  Go over to this website http://mortiermusic.com/album/his-own-self and support this project.  If you are into physical copies this belongs in the collection without a doubt!