The thing about J-Live that strikes me the most is his ability to make his words dance. There is a sort of alchemy that takes place when the words move from the page to the mic where they come alive swinging, swaying, and skipping about the beats where other emcees just hold onto the beat to carry them through to the end.  J-Live bobs and weaves about it occasionally mockingly as he drops into other voices, other times driving the beat along with his double-time patter. On The Hear After, which dropped in late summer last year, he maintains that ability as well as weaving a multitude of new stories about the New York Philadelphia corridor expounding on social issues as well as relating personal stories such as his time spent teaching in the Brooklyn public school system.

Production on the album is solid as most tracks lock in tightly to the rhymes supporting the emcees, never overpowering them or taking away from their work. “Whoever” has the backing track that stands out the most for me with it swaying Latin rhythms that are evocative of a summer’s afternoon at a Nuyorcian block party. Brass lines punctuate the syllables of the rhymes, timbales add bounce, and all while flutes swirl about like a light breeze. The track is infectious particularly as it rounds the corner to the last bars hammering the chorus home like a band vamping as the finale nears.

Usually, I dislike skits or tracks that are built around the skit concept as they often become tired over repeated listenings however the piece that he put together with his wife, Kola Rock. “Listening” is an intimate number, playing out as a long distance call home where the two trade stanzas, building the threads into a cohesive whole that stresses the importance of listening in order to learn about what has brought them to the place in which they now stand. Kola Rock demonstrates herself as a talented emcee and poet.  I am hopeful that her work will see a release of its own in the near future.

The Hear After is not an album for those who are wrapped up in the mindset that Hip-Hop needs to be about slinging rocks and flashing Glocks, as he stresses in “Sidewalks” not everyone is willing to play into stereotypes and on this album he certainly does not pander to the images playing out on MTV. That said, The Hear After is an album that begs to be listened to as J-Live proves himself to be highly literate and an extremely capable emcee.