A mostly successful refinement of their debut, Expansion Team finds Dilated Peoples attempting to broaden their lyrical outlook somewhat, while taking advantage of a bigger budget to experiment with a varied cast of producers. Thanks to the latter, Expansion Team is arguably an even better-sounding album than its accomplished predecessor, boasting endless subtleties and imaginative touches in its backing tracks. And if the record is still heavy on the battle rhymes, Evidence and Iriscience a...   [ read more ]

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VINYL FORMAT. Dilated Peoples wanted to make a point that they had a clear vision for their music, hence the 20/20 title for their new album. "We've done a lot of experimentation, worked with a lot of different people and tried a lot of different things," Rakaa explains. "With this record, we wanted to really get back to a real, uncut pure vision and get back to the pure, boom-bap sound that really made us all get together as people and want to make music together."

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Not that rappers Evidence and Rakaa ever have to coast on their productions, but the strength of Dilated Peoples since their debut has been the beats, not the rhymes. When the productions of the Alchemist or Babu or Evidence are flying, records like "Work the Angles" or The Platform have followed suit -- and allowed the group to grow steadily as lyricists. But just as DP have crested as a strong group of community-minded artists, the productions have fallen off. Most of the blame...   [ read more ]

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