Thread by @MangyAsianMan, I even cut a trailer using one of the tracks from that [...]

I even cut a trailer using one of the tracks from that album. (coming soon perhaps).

So I was very excited to hear her latest album which dropped in late March and yes she had to cancel her upcoming tour.

I& #39;m not a rap aficiniado. There& #39;s familiarity but...

if you asked me to name the top 5 rap artists of 2019 I& #39;d make a fool of myself.
That being said I& #39;ve been a fan of mc chris for a while and he has been my entry point for a lot of other great nerdcore rappers such as @MegaRan and @mclars.

So you can imagine my surprise when...

when I heard about Lex. She raps. She& #39;s intelligent. She& #39;s crippled by anxiety. And she& #39;s Asian.

So there& #39;s all these components that I think work well together and she successfully repurposes her identity into her music.

I& #39;ve been listening to Alter Ego several times...

since it dropped and I wanted to be sure to have the music in my head before I wrote anything about it.

Overall I would say it& #39;s a 8/10 which isn& #39;t the same as a B for me. In that regard I would say it& #39;s closer to an A because one metric that people don& #39;t account for with media

is repeatability. Is this a movie or album that I will listen to past the first few months? That& #39;s typically what grants a higher rating from me than just simply something I enjoy.

Alter Ego has great replay value because it& #39;s a dense and full length album with enough

variation in style and tone.

So Lex is an artist who assumes an alter ego on stage and is very vocal about that. Multiple tracks address this. If we take her at her word (and I have nothing else to gauge this on) then she& #39;s hyper aware and critical of herself. Again...

this is probably why I like her music so much. She gives voice to a large part of my own identity. When she raps about being trapped in painful memories of shame and being unable to forgive herself for things that most likely are not as traumatic to the supposed victims I

feel like she& #39;s tapped into my own mind and I wonder what is the nexus of these ideas?
Hiding behind alter egos is what we all do but most people are unaware of won& #39;t admit it. Not Lex. Not me. Remember I& #39;m the guy that would go to open mics with an MF Doom mask and make

everyone uncomfortable by making jokes about how ugly I am.

So there& #39;s this great volume of tracks that really speak to me and I dig it and feeling that connection is something special since I don& #39;t identify with too many other people anyway.

And the album features several

other guests collaborating on multiple tracks so tonally there& #39;s this break from just one POV and it& #39;s playful and works very well without feeling like a shared track.
This is Lex& #39;s album from top to bottom.

If I have complaints it& #39;s that after 18 tracks it

begins to feel repetitive in certain meters and ideas. I realize this sounds contradictory to the above statements but I would take a few less tracks that consolidate similar concepts/ideas rather than being spread out for music& #39;s sake.
The more pop-based tracks such as

"Party Hop" and "Famous" are not high on my list but the anthemic fight songs of "I Know", "Infosession", "Posturing" and of course the title track, "Alter Ego" featuring Schaffer the Dark Lord @schafferthedark are a real treat.

Shuffled neatly between these tracks are slower, melodic ballads that feel like honest expressions of ego that maybe aren& #39;t quite as catchy but do well to fill in the entire portraiture of what the entire album& #39;s theme is built around.

"All the Time" "Self Care" "The Real Thing" "Loss of Ego" "Retcon Artist" are almost confessional in hearing Lex express the sort of sentiment that makes you think, "is she ok?" "Is this a cry for help?"

There& #39;s an immense level of controlling the narrative at work here.

And again, as a comedian who used the mic to put himself down there& #39;s this transparency in using your art to address and get over the anxiety and fear you feel. Whether it& #39;s impostor syndrome or just crippling depression or genuine self-loathing. These ideas wrap around you

and you feel like you& #39;re suffocating. So to hear Lex scream through these layers and articulate what most people would be too modest to voice is like having a veil lifted from your eyes or to surface from deep water and take that air into your lungs. There& #39;s a sense of

remembering what it feels to be alive after being numb and adrift for so long.

So the question is why does she rap about identity and the answer is complicated. It& #39;s not just because she& #39;s an educated Asian American woman but also it is.

Obviously you won& #39;t enjoy this album if you don& #39;t like identity politics.

So of course I love this album and while it has some weaknesses it& #39;s still superior for being exactly what it is. It wouldn& #39;t work if it were too poppy but I do wish it had catchier hooks for me to sing.

So in closing check the album out wherever you get your music from so long as you aren& #39;t stealing it. With her upcoming tour cancelled that& #39;s gotta hurt the bottom line. Support artists. Support women. Support Asian Americans.

And thank you @lextheconartist for the new album. Despite my failure to have cogent thoughts right now I love your album and don& #39;t think I don& #39;t see the work. It& #39;s an incredible achievement and I hope you keep on and I hope we can work together someday.

So not sure what happened to the 1st part of this thread but TL:DR this is my review of @lextheconartist& #39;s new album, "Alter Ego." I& #39;m a newer fan but a fan nonetheless. Her previous album, "Raging Ego" is dope AF too.

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