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THE HEAR AFTER
PENALTY
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The Hear After is all about "shouldas." A man so intelligent, so forthright, so whipsmart shoulda been a visionary alongside Q-Tip, Common, and Blackstar; he shoulda been a dust-free relic of the Native Tongues oligarchy; and the unusually prescient The Best Part and All of the Above shoulda predicted a brilliant trifecta for one of the cleverest and most cocksure storytellers in the game. But The Hear After comes wickedly incorrect on the 10th anniversary of J-Live’s first single, "Braggin’ Writes." So point fingers if you must. Maybe it’s the notable departure of DJ Spinna that leaves J-Live without a pad for his poison pen — "The Sidewalks" and "Brooklyn Public Part 1" boast all the same witticisms and narrative panache of his earlier work but without Spinna’s stickiness or snap. Or maybe the move from Brooklyn to Philly simply sapped his creativity. But without any better excuses, The Hear After is a stumble that a 31-year-old ex-schoolteacher shouldn’ta made.
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