Artist review: Independent (Aires Jackson)

Aires Jackson -- Independent [LP]
by Jeanie Straub
ColoradoMusicBuzz.com

Experience can pay off considerably when it comes to producing hip-hop: It can mean the difference between high-end and ordinary. The evenness of Independent, produced by the immensely skilled James Ray and Lenny Lenn, is the album’s greatest strength. Experience -- including time being out there in the scene -- allows a producer to attract a plethora of the wide-ranging guest artists, and of course "time served" in the studio also helps a rapper to cultivate the kind of intelligent but ballsy rhymes and solid beats that push a release into the realm of the brilliant. (Independent, I predict, will lend itself well to the best-case scenario for album advertising, which is word-of-mouth.) This latest release from the duo is no less than exceptional, a first-rate effort of 15 all-notable tracks, especially "Sports and Entertainment," "Dope," "State of Mind," "Son Shine," "Going Live" -- I could go on and list 90 percent of them. Clearly Independent not only benefited from the world-weariness of the brotherly team but also from the heart and soul and sweat that went in to the mix.

The full album is available for free at http://airesjackson.bandcamp.com