i love 'rising down' and consider it a great continuation, with some key differences, from 'game theory,' and it would easily make a hypothetical top 50 hip-hop albums of the decade list. so many of my "favorite" albums didn't make the list i made though, so RD is in good company, and it's no slight. i didn't know the roots would make my list twice until i was actually narrowing down the choices, and i think ?uest has production on at least 6 of those 50 albums.


>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.

i agree...


>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.

i agree again


>It was 5x as dark, menacing, claustrophobic, and grimy as Game
>Theory

i'm willing to concede that they're equally so or that maybe RD is even a little more so, but not 5x more



>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.

i agree that it's one of the best feeling hip-hop songs in a long time. that was one of the album highlights for me, too.


>Just an incredible well thought-out,
>well-structured album.

for some reason it just doesn't seem and sound as well thought-out and -structured to me, which is why i prefer GT, as it flows incredibly well and sounds tighter. maybe it's all the guests on RD, because even though they deliver, it gets a little crowded.