I feel you, I have heard the whole album,(and since given it away)it's a departure from Nia, I can see what you're saying about everything from the Okayplayer (yeah, yeah, only featured artists...so what)camp is starting to sound like one long album, and this is no different. It's like they lost their b-boy intensity, and replaced it with joints with Gil Scott Heron, and Jaguar. Now I won't say that's totally wack, but in my opinion Gift Of Gab does not have a well enough defined rep as a lyricist yet to take the backseat to other performers-and ultimately get OUTSHINED!!! Can any verse of Gift's fuck with the shit Saul Williams dropped on Release, hell no. But anyway, I'm on a tangent, it's just a bit dissapointing, that everytime an artist gets with the Roots crew their sound is normally sacrificed, if you don't beleive me, just experience the softer side of Common on LWFC-which had to grow on me cause it just sounded like The Roots featuring the artist formally known as Com Sense.