The Outsider - DJ Shadow
The ever-mutating DJ Shadow tries his hand with hyphy — a gritty, uptempo form of hip-hop from California’s Bay Area — on “The Outsider.” The album is likely to confuse some longtime followers while introducing him to hip-hop fans with more mainstream tastes. Hyphy heavyweights like Keak Da Sneak, Turf Talk and E-40 are all here, while Q-Tip and Lateef grace the keyboard-driven club banger “Enuff,” the most commercial-sounding rap track Shadow has ever released. Elsewhere, David Banner breathes fire on “Seein’ Thangs,” which lambastes President Bush’s response to Hurricane Katrina, and Chris Martin vocal doppelganger Chris James emotes effectively on the soaring “You Made It.” The sequence is a bit puzzling, with most of the rap songs either at the very beginning or very end, and fans craving the dark instrumentalism of “Endtroducing” are mostly out of luck. But more often than not, even Shadow’s most extreme sonic detours hit home.
