The Severed Cortex

Tobacco road in the context of country music conjures images of being back home living the country boy life. Tobacco road in the context of hip hop is something totally different. And tobacco road in the context of David Lee Roth conjures a rise in bile within my esophagus. Let's go back to the previous one, since Common Market is indeed a hip hop group. A socially conscious hip hop group. I love a good beat, but if you actually say something over the top of that beat ... well that means a lot more.
You can guess with the title Tobacco Road there are things to say, and in fact there are. Conventional wisdom, given a title like Tobacco Road, would conjure up themes structured around planting, growing, tending, and harvesting. Perhaps you'd even throw in a reference to slavery, or rednecks, or how about the tried and true white man keeping the black man down. You'd be surprised to find out that there really isn't much of any of that on here. Well, maybe you wouldn't be surprised, but I was. If you take a swipe through the lyrics you'll find a little bit of those themes here and there. Be prepared to bring a dictionary and an internet connection to Wikipedia though. At one point I said, that's not a word, and was promptly handed my dumb ass right back to me by dictionary.com. (proscenium - a theatre with a prominent archway). Like I said, I expected Common Market to go the typical route, and instead they touched on themes of hard work, the damages of the bottle, domestic abuse, the Virginia Tech shooter, and most prominently the idea that one must press on even when things look hopeless. Worthy topics indeed.
As a hip hop artist, rapping about themes you would expect with such a title of this one requires nothing short of screaming in your face. Public Enemy invented the genre and in the process abused bagpipe samples as a signature. You'll get no such harshness here. Take away the lyrics and you've got beats that with eyes closed could be attributed to trip hop artists Portishead. The entire CD is very laid back from end to end. You'll get a real hip hop beat on a couple tracks, but most of these lean heavy on trip, not hip. It just furthers the intellectualism of this release if you ask me. But, smart as it is, it is largely scattered thematically when judging it as a whole. Am I faulting it because they named it Tobacco Road, put a tractor on the cover, and then neglected to utter the phrase kill massa. Yeah, probably. If they called it Two Brothers Smarter Than You I would have probably liked it more. The bottom line is that these really are two smart brothers who put nice beats and street poetry together like few others can.
At eighteen songs and an hour of music, you can't say you get cheated. The problem is that there are about five or six that maybe shouldn't be on here. Yes, they are better than most, but putting twelve of these together and tightening up the themes would have vaulted this to the top of all hip hop CD's. Not hellified gangster top of the list, but maybe in a De La Soul kind of world it would rank high. Trouble Is and Nina Sings are just plain and simple outstanding. Gol'Dust and Weather Vane are also fine. The rest is just serviceable. I'd say if you get those four and have 99 cents for one more song, give me a call and I'll recommend another.