Doomtree
Self Titled
Doomtree Records
9/10

It is shit like this that gives me hope for the future of rap. Fuck club anthems, fuck songs that are designed to get their three weeks of TRL rotation (well, we don’t have to worry about that much longer!) and fuck the beats that have been used more than a Sunset Strip hooker. Doomtree comes out with an album that grabs your hair and dunks you deep into pools of thought. It may be rough, but it’s good for you. Doomtree is made of five emcees and four producers, each bringing a different style and flavor to the potluck of the record. P.O.S., Cecil Otter, Mike Mictlan and Sims each come out with a fury of flow and style, while Dessa, the lone lady of the crew, drops rhymes in more of a spoken word style, adding an additional level of power to her words.

Delving into the style of samples made famous by Atmosphere, Doomtree rocks everything from jazz piano to choral arrangements to what can only be described as chaos. With personal accounts the majority of the context, it’s doubtful that you’ll have the proverbial bitches grinding all up ons, so don’t get any ideas. If a lady or fella is enticed to you as you rock this, they probably have better taste than the hoodrat hoodrat hoochie mamas you’ve been wasting your time with.

-Jonathan “The Emperor” Yost