Search - Tanya Morgan :: Moonlighting

Roots+

C. W. Hall | Atlanta, GA USA | 01/25/2008

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Tanya Morgan is one of those internet spawned projects that makes an old cat like me cringe just a little bit. You could call it a Fed Ex project. Brooklynite Von Pea meets Cincinnati residents Ilyas and Donwill on Okayplayer and a group is born. I'm naturally inclined to hate this. But I don't and I didn't hate Foreign Exchange either. An old head might be coming around to this internet stuff.



Von Pea is an incredible production talent. He makes classic hip-hop tracks. Nothing fancy, extra pretty, or overtly progressive. Just hard-hitting, throw-back boom-bap that any MC worth his baggy jeans and Tims should salivate to rock over. Cincinnati-based producer Brickbeats takes the tracks Von doesn't do and while he's not nearly as consistent as Von, he has some noteworthy joints here as well.



There's something about MCs who don't take themselves too seriously that makes everything they do sound better. Think Pharcyde, Little Brother, and any other crew whose music sounds like it was fun to make. By way of example, check out "Ode to Tanya" where the crew takes turns bad-mouthing each other to the fictional Ms. Morgan. Something makes me love a crew that's cool enough that one MC can say about the producer "I ain't sayin' dude is wack, but he couldn't pawn a beat."



The most ironic thing about Moonlighting is that it's a project spawned on The Roots web-site that outshines anything the Philly group has put out in years. While ?uest, Black Thought, and company have transformed to a jam band, groups like Tanya Morgan are picking up their legacy and surpassing them."

Worth It's Weight in Platinum

J. Johnson | Milwaukee, WI USA | 09/24/2007

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Real quick. I must admit that I recently just bought this album about two days ago, and all I can say is: "Rapp music may be dead, but hip-hop lives forever." I listen to a lot of underground and unknowns in the industry, and by far, this is one of the tightest albums of 2006. No diss at all to my brother Donwill, but if you want to hear those fire lyrics, you all better ask somebody about Von Pea. I first heard him on the Nicolay Mixtape (1st Date), but I didn't know that he was in a group. Now, I want everything that got this brother on it. I haven't stopped listening to this album since I bought it. Buy it. Trust me, it's worth every penny. It's a shame that this is another tight group that will probably sit on the shelf because people want to listen to garbage and keep up with who's going to sell more albums between 50 cent and Kanye. Donwill and Von Pea will serve all these suckas. Peace."