All Balls Don't Bounce

Aceyalone’s solo debut album finds the Freestyle Fellow signed to a major label, collaborating with other leading lights of the LA underground hip-hop scene and exploring new thematic territory, including relationship raps. Standout tracks include the first of many team ups with Abstract Rude, “Deep and Wide,” which shows the two friends doing what they do best, rapping about rapping. Acey’s vocabulary bounces around the dictionary, pushing and dragging the tempo at will, contrasting with Ab Rude’s impossibly smooth metronomic delivery. Other highlights include the narrative tracks “Annalilia,” about an encounter with a strong willed woman, and “Makeba,” which Ace notes is “not a love ballad, but it is a slow song.”