The Craft (album) - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Craft is the third full-length album by hip hop

Hip hop music

Hip hop music, also called hip-hop, rap music or hip-hop music, is a musical genre consisting of a stylized rhythmic music that commonly accompanies rapping, a rhythmic and rhyming speech that is chanted...

duo Blackalicious

Blackalicious

Blackalicious is an American hip hop duo from Sacramento, California made up of rapper Gift of Gab and DJ/producer Chief Xcel . They are noted for Gift of Gab's often "tongue-twisting", multisyllabic, complex rhymes and Chief Xcel's "classic" beats...

, released on ANTI-

ANTI-

ANTI- is an American record label founded in 1999 as a sister label of Epitaph Records.While Epitaph's focus has shifted over the last decade from mostly punk rock, nowadays ANTI- has a more diverse roster, ranging from country , hip hop , reggae , Soul , folk , rap-rock , indie rock...

on September 27, 2005. The group worked with Grammy Award-winning engineer Russell Elevado

Russell Elevado

Russell Elevado , is a recording engineer and record producer based in New York City. Elevado's achievement for recording and mixing contemporary R&B recording artist D'Angelo's critically acclaimedVoodoo album, gained him a Grammy award in 2000...

who previous work includes D'Angelo's Voodoo, Alicia Key's Songs In A Minor
Songs in A Minor
Songs in A Minor is the debut studio album by American recording artist Alicia Keys. It was released in the United States on June 5, 2001 by J Records. After graduating from high school, Keys signed with Columbia Records to begin her music career. She recorded an album in 1998 under the label,...

, Erykah Badu's Mama's Gun
Mama's Gun
Mama's Gun is the second studio album by American recording artist Erykah Badu, released November 21, 2000, on Motown Records. Recording sessions for the album took place from 1999 to 2000 at Electric Lady Studios in New York City...

. Chief Xcel went on to describe him as Blackalicious' third member. Xcel explained his thoughts on the album:

Reception

Initial critical response to The Craft was positive. At Metacritic

Metacritic

Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...

, which assigns a normalized

Standard score

In statistics, a standard score indicates how many standard deviations an observation or datum is above or below the mean. It is a dimensionless quantity derived by subtracting the population mean from an individual raw score and then dividing the difference by the population standard deviation...

rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album has received an average

Weighted mean

The weighted mean is similar to an arithmetic mean , where instead of each of the data points contributing equally to the final average, some data points contribute more than others...

score of 80, based on 22 reviews.

Track listing

|- "
! # !! | Title !! Performer(s)!!Producer(s)!!Length!!Samples Used
|-
| 1. || "World of Vibrations" || Gift of Gab
Ledisi

Ledisi

Ledisi Anibade Young is an American singer-songwriter and actress. Her first name means "to bring forth" or "to come here" in Yoruba. Ledisi is known for her jazz influenced vocals. In 1995, Ledisi formed the group known as Anibade. After unsuccessfully trying to get the group signed to a major...

||Chief Xcel|| 5:02 || Joe Simon "It Be's That Way Sometimes"
|-
| 2. || "Supreme People" ||Gift of Gab||Chief Xcel|| 4:03 ||
|-
| 3. || "Rhythm Sticks" ||Gift of Gab||Chief Xcel|| 4:36 ||
|-
| 4. || "Powers" ||Gift of Gab||Chief Xcel|| 3:47 ||
|-
| 5. || "Your Move" ||Gift of Gab
Lifesavas

Lifesavas

Lifesavas are a hip-hop group from Portland, Oregon. Jumbo the Garbageman is an MC/producer and Vursatyl is an MC. DJ Shines has also been involved in much of the production and DJing on their albums.- Discography :* Spirit in Stone...

||Chief Xcel|| 3:55 ||
|-
| 6. || "Lotus Flower" ||Gift of Gab
George Clinton

George Clinton (funk musician)

George Clinton is an American singer, songwriter, bandleader, and music producer and the principal architect of P-Funk. He was the mastermind of the bands Parliament and Funkadelic during the 1970s and early 1980s, and launched a solo career in 1981. He has been cited as one of the foremost...

||Chief Xcel|| 4:11 ||
|-
| 7. || "My Pen and Pad" ||Gift of Gab||Chief Xcel|| 2:02 ||
|-
| 8. || "Side to Side" ||Gift of Gab
Lateef

Lateef

Lateef the Truthspeaker also known as The Truthspeaker or simply Lateef, is an American hip-hop artist who is part of the groups Latyrx and The Maroons AKA Lateef and the Chief...

Pigeon John

Pigeon John is an American hip hop rapper raised in Hawthorne, California and based in Los Angeles, California.-Biography:Pigeon John is a Los Angeles area rapper who has recorded four studio albums as a solo artist, as well as several others as a member of the groups like L.A. Symphony and...

||Chief Xcel|| 4:36 ||
|-
| 9. || "Automatique" ||Gift of Gab
Floetry

Floetry

Floetry was a British R&B duo comprising Marsha Ambrosius and Natalie Stewart . The group recorded two studio albums, one live album, and sold over 800,000 records worldwide. Formed in 1999, Floetry started on the performance poetry stage.In 2002, the duo released their first album entitled, Floetic...

||Chief Xcel|| 4:07 ||
|-
| 10. || "The Fall and Rise of Elliot Brown" ||Gift of Gab||Chief Xcel|| 3:55 || Prelude in C sharp minor (Rachmaninoff)
|-
| 11. || "Black Diamonds and Pearls" ||Gift of Gab
Ledisi

Ledisi

Larry Saunders||Chief Xcel|| 4:22 ||
|-
| 12. || "Give It to You" ||Gift of Gab||Chief Xcel|| 3:51 ||
|-
| 13. || "Ego Sonic War Drums" ||Gift of Gab
P.E.A.C.E.

Freestyle Fellowship

Freestyle Fellowship are a rap group from Los Angeles consisting of rappers Aceyalone, Myka 9, P.E.A.C.E., Self Jupiter and producer J Sumbi...

||Chief Xcel|| 5:57 ||
|-
| 14. || "The Craft" ||Gift of Gab||Chief Xcel|| 3:46 ||
|}

Production

The album was solely produced by Chief Xcel. It contains much more live instrumentation than on previous Blackalicious albums. Prefix Magazine described the production:

Album chart positions

Year	Album	Chart positions
Year	Album	Billboard 200 Billboard 200 The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists...	Top R&B/Hip Hop Albums	Top Independent Albums
2005	The Craft	102	79	5

External links

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