A-1 (real name, Adam Rashid Traore) is an American rapper from San Francisco. This album is called "After School Special" for a reason. The concept of the album is that A-1 pretends to be sick one morning so he can stay at home and watch his favorite TV shows. Of course, this happened when he was a kid, not as an adult. Every beat on this album is basically a hip-hop version of well-known TV shows opening themes from the 90s and earlier. Although this sounds like a very gimmicky and cheesy, it's executed amazingly well. Most would expect geeky nerdcore lyrics, but instead, you get social commentary about A-1's life and generally growing up as well. Some of the opening themes include shows like the Pokemon Theme, Goosebumps, Golden Girls and even Reading Rainbow. He really uses the samples extremely well, playing off the lyrics, sometimes in really creative ways. For example, in the Reading Rainbow sample, he uses the "butterfly in the sky" line as a reference to the effects of drugs. His flow is pretty good, and generally the wordplay is fantastic and he has quite a few memorable lines.
And it's free. His other stuff is also free.
A-1 Bandcamp
8 out of 10 people will like this.
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