Kenosis “Transidentity”
Released: 2010
Reviewed By: E Pluribus Unum
Rating: 3.7 (of 10)
[xrr rating=3.7/10]

Well, my mom always told me if I didn’t have anything nice to say, not to say anything at all. I hate to admit this, but I don’t have a lot to say about this album that’s positive. I was actually really disappointed by this album (sorry Mom). I’ve never heard of Kenosis, so I didn’t have a high (or low) expectation for this project. If I were to be totally honest, I wanted to skip past most of this album.

Sometimes, it seems like these brothers were rhyming just to rhyme and not making a lot of sense. On “Outlook” one of the lines went as follows: “Not a reprobate, He cleaned the slate. I got a brand new chance to walk the straight and narrow, like Pharaoh.” …Like Pharaoh? One of the best songs on this album, in my opinion, was “Pattern” and some of first lyrics heard in the verse are, “…with a heart made of Styrofoam, this microphone I’m screaming in is meaningless to ribosomes. Am I the only one inside a home? I can write a song, but I can’t fight alone.” …Huh? Yeah, it rhymes but…smh. Ok, I’m sorry. Let’s move on.

The production on this album is boring. I found absolutely no head bangers. There was nothing I could hang my hat on to skip over some of the other issues on this album. For instance, sometimes the rapping would get off beat. Another thing that is probably more of a personal issue that others may or may not care about is the content. The content is “Christian” of course, but some of the scriptural references within the lyrics were somewhat deeper than the norm. I presume that I’m dealing with some pretty intelligent emcees that read their Bibles. Great! But what’s the point of being intelligent when information can’t be broken down so that everyone can understand? What profit is there if you have a “heart for the streets”, but you talk over the heads of the streets? I’m sorry. Maybe this is just me, but I don’t think “the streets” study the Bible as much as they would need to, to understand some of the references made in some of the songs. I guess I’m partially tripping. With a group name like Kenosis and a project named Transidentity, it’d be silly to expect something less than deep. But here’s something deep for you. Deep doesn’t always equal complicated or difficult to comprehend. After all, deep calls unto deep, right? But hey, there should be music for every type of person and I get that.

“Under My King” is a song (in addition to “Pattern” and “Cause and Effect”) that actually has a pretty good flow to it. Unfortunately, most of the album just didn’t come across the same way. But hey, everybody is a critic. I’m just the guy who wrote the review. Peace and much love.

Comprehensive Ratings:

• Music: 2 of 10
• Flow / Delivery: 3 of 10
• Lyricism: 5 of 10
• Content: 6 of 10
• Creativity / Originality / Relevancy: 3 of 10
• Credibility / Confidence: 4 of 10
• Personality / Character: 2 of 10
• Presentation Quality: 4 of 10
• Overall Production Quality: 5 of 10
• Potential Impact: 3 of 10