Crown City Rockers: One : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

The symphony of strings that mesh so perfectly on "Intro" -- a fading instrumental less than a minute long -- makes it easy to pinpoint Mission's Berklee College of Music background. That institution may have been the brewery, but the finished brew also carries the distinctive flavor of their native Oakland streets. Emcees Raashan Ahmad and Moe Pope -- with the help of an assortment of musicians -- pool diverse studio productions and live instrumentation, making for an organic, funky debut. The team sounds intellectually solid on "Disturbing Behavior," a deep jazzy loop that creates a solemn atmosphere designed to raise the level of consciousness: "With money, cash and weed and fame/are as lame with all these Africans with Italian names -- change the strategy!" In the tradition of the Roots, Digable Planets and Black Eyed Peas, positively focused songs like "More Than You Know" or "Now I Shine" see Mission trying to break the cycle of hypocrisy and monotonous stereotypes within hip-hop. And all along the way, the magic of the music still supports a guaranteed head-nod, backspin or record scratch.

MARLON REGIS
(RS 870 - June 7, 2001)