This is seriously one of the best rap albums to ever bless my ears. The beats were some of the most experimental (yet so soulful) beats I've ever heard. The raps were insane.

Hell, Truck North is a fuckin' newcomer and dropped one of the most poetic verses of all time, even though Mos Def dropped one of the best verses of the year and album on the first song, and PORN was seriously vicious every time I heard him. I don't even need to go into how fucking dope Thought was.

75 Bars....sheet, it's a wrap for all you wack niggas. Thought, Truck, & PORN are like what Slum Village would sound like if everyone always rapped with ferocity and yet stayed smooth and dexterous. (No diss against SV though; the reason I love them is because they have fun, but can come hard when they want.)

They even forced Common to do a nice verse in 2008.

It was 5x as dark, menacing, claustrophobic, and grimy as Game Theory, even though I look at Game Theory more as a concept album about a man trying to get by in these harsh times, while Rising Down is more of a captured moment in history.

And, when they lightened up at the end of the record, they made the funkiest, jamminest banger of a hip-hop record that I heard all '08 and '09. Just an incredible well thought-out, well-structured album.