A.P.O.S.T.L.E.

So…the question is: can you teach without preaching?

A.P.O.S.T.L.E. believes you can. Despite the connotations the name might produce, the man knows that once you preach, you judge. And once you judge, the listening stops. This is, of course, working on the assumption that there is listening to begin with. The new wave of socially conscious hip-hop (Mos Def, Flobots, Dälek) has forced even the most apathetic among us to prick up our lazy ears and take heed.

Lyrical Activism is a powerful album that is in great danger of falling below the majority’s radar for its lack of the one thing - the almighty thing that really, truly is the only thing to grab the masses attention and that’s the infallible hook. That special something is what connects on purely the most superficial of levels but it can then be used to draw in the listener to pay attention to the ever-more important message hidden deeper within. Those already seeking the message don’t need it spoon-fed to them with such an obvious device, but to break through the skulls of the inattentive, it has become a sad necessity. The lack of this however does nothing to diminish the power that this album has to illicit thought and pause. A.P.O.S.T.L.E. wants us to “develop our mind through mental emancipation” and does this with personal stories, not grandiose big picture scenarios, knowing that change, real change, starts from within and how we choose to act or not act rests squarely on the shoulders of each and every one of us.

8.0 / 10 — Kevin Fitzpatrick