[Album Review] Substantial – “Home Is Where The Art Is” – #### Review

As he drops his newest solo album, emcee Substantial is gaining a flurry of new fans. Interestingly enough many of those fans would be surprised to discover that Home Is Where The Art Is is Substantial’s third album. For an emcee with talent, two strong albums under his belt and four other dope projects such as “Bop Alloy” With Marcus D , it’s strange that many listeners think of him as a new artist. Luckily Home Is Where The Art Is is here to let heads know the deal.

Home Is Where The Art Is is probably one of Substantial’s more personal albums. Starting with “Spilled Milk”,where Substantial talks about the challenges of life and how sometimes you just have to suck it up, he gives listeners a look into his life, his challenges and just plain making it through life these days. In addition to “Spilled Milk”, tracks such as “See Hear”, “Resilient” and “The Verge” give us a look into the emcee’s life. “Umoja” (which is the Swahili word for “unity”) talks about that subject and is a beautiful track.

At the end of the day, Substantial is still an emcee and for those that enjoy the battle side of the artist, he has a few songs for you two. The tracks “Mr. Consistent” and “Check My Resume” are two awesome headnodders that find Substantial detailing his history and letting us know that he’s dope. Period. For those that enjoy the raw, battle verses (as I do) these tracks are pure gold.

The production on Home Is Where The Art Is is stout all the way through. While producer/emcee Oddisee is touted as the executive producer, he only produces four of the twelve tracks. Producers such as Slopfunkdust (Spilled Milk), M-Phazes (The Verge and Grateful) and of course Algorythm (See Hear and Neighborhood Watch) to name a few all pick up the slack and hold their weight. For this reviewer, “Check My Resume” and “Mr. Consistent” step up as the album’s two standout tracks.

While the albums To This Union A Sun Was Born and Sacrifice are both dope, Home Is Where The Art Is may be Substantial’s best release to date, as it is well produced, focused and tightly composed. Only twelve tracks deep, the album skips the fluff and fillers and brings forth a complete album with very few weaknesses.

Rating – #### out of #####

Tracklist
1.Spilled Milk (prod. SlopFunkDust)
2.See Hear (prod. Algorythm)
3.Mr. Consistent (prod. Street Orchestra)
4.Neighborhood Watch (prod. Algorythm)
5.Resilient (prod. Eric Lau)
6.Check My Resume (prod. Oddisee)
7.Make Believe (prod. Oddisee)
8.Make Up Sex (prod. Surrock)
9.Shit On My Lawn (prod. Oddisee)
10.The Verge (prod. M-Phazes)
11.Umoja (prod. Oddisee)
12.Grateful (prod. M-Phazes)