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Ah, hip-hop collabs – when two MCs join together on a record and deliver the best of what they got, it can forever be known as a classic…..or some would just phone it in, talk some bullshit and sell it to those dumb enough to buy into it. Well, thankfully, in this review, I have some faith in this next album and it comes from Jean Grae and Quelle Chris.<\/p>\n
Jean Grae is an underground NY hip hop MC who started in the late ’90s-early 2000s, working with artists like Talib Kweli, Mos Def, Little Brother, Pharoahe Monch, among others during that era, and has released 4 studio albums and countless EPs and mixtapes (not counting\u00a0The Evil Jeanius<\/em> project as she was pissed with her former label Babygrande with that one.) Quelle Chris is a Detroit rapper, songwriter and producer signed with Mello Music Group, the label that includes people like Open Mike Eagle, Mr. Lif, Oddisee, and Skyzoo among others, and if you remember our Decibel Boost Top Albums of 2017 Year-End Spectacular<\/a>\u00a0and my top 15 albums of 2017, I put his last album\u00a0Being You is Great, I Wish I Was You More Often<\/em> in my top albums of 2017, in which Jean Grae was a feature on there with “The Prestige,” which was one of my favorite tracks on there.<\/p>\n Also, I didn’t know the two were recently engaged back in late December 2017 until it just popped up when singles for the album started dropping. Anyway, looking into the album’s title, I immediately got the grasp of the concept of the expression with the touch of absurdity, honesty and self-reflection that both artists are known for. The first hint of that is the intro, the title track, when it’s played off like a game-show with everyone responding with “Everything’s Fine” in that dazed and depressing tone after the announcer describes their very sad lives. That also appears in the skits they put into the album like “Don’t Worry It’s Fine” with comedian John Hodgman and\u00a0SNL’s<\/em> Michael Che repeating the phrase, all played in this sad twisted sax solo sound, and with the other two, “Doing Better than Ever,” with that subject of trying to improve with the words of Ashop “Dap” Kondabolu, and then on “Everything’s Still Fine,” we get a calming and surreal beat and the soothing voice of one Nick Offerman telling us that we need to find a way to keep ourselves calm from all the drama and harsh realities in the world.<\/p>\n