04/10/12: Serengeti - Family & Friends (2011)

04/10/12: Serengeti - Family & Friends (2011)

1. Tracks (feat. Yoni Wolf)
2. PMDD (feat. Owen Ashworth)
3. Long Ears (feat. Yoni Wolf & Becky Wolf)
4. Ha-Ha (feat. Hazel Brown & Martha Brown)
5. A.R.P.
6. Godammit (feat. Yoni Wolf)
7. Flutes
8. California
9. The Whip
10. Family & Friends (feat. Yoni Wolf)
11. Dwight

     I mentioned in my Son Lux review that I would also be listening to some Serengeti soon as a result of s/s/s, an Anticon Super Group with Sufjan Stevens, Son Lux and Serengeti. I soon realized that there were a lot of reasons for me to check out Serengeti. He is a rapper who has worked with many different producers. This album, "Family & Friends" fully demonstrates that concept. The production duties are split between Yoni Wolf of Why? fame and Advance Base, a new moniker of Owen Ashworth from Casiotone for the Painfully Alone (another band I planned to check out in the course of this project).
     I also read that Serengeti tends to embody various personalities and characters throughout his releases. The main character is Kenny Dennis and is kind of strange. I will be covering a couple Kenny Dennis releases over the next couple weeks, so I'll get into that later. Due to these goofy alter egos, he also has been compared to Buck 65 and that of course caught my eye. I also found that he is from Chicago. I bought a couple of his albums after finding out all of these facts.
     I started with "Family & Friends" because I wanted to start out on one of his more normal releases where he isn't playing a charcter. I was also a huge fan of the fact that Yoni Wolf Produced and Guest starred on half of the albums tracks. Both producers made really unique and cool beats. I can't say I preferred Yoni wolf or Advance Base. They both did an awesome job. The album is cohesive despite the alternating production. Serengeti has a cool voice, a good flow and interesting lyrics. It is a quality hip-hop album while being barely hip-hop. Serengeti takes influences from all over the map and he grouped with the right people to not make traditional music. This album was really great and a good intro to Serengeti.There is not a bad track on it. It lives up to its title seeing that he had so much assistance from his friends and some family members of said friends. (101)