EMERGENCE

The Georgetown Voice names ShapeShifters best album of the Summer:

Ilana Weaver, a.k.a. Invincible, is a genius anomaly of a rapper: where many mainstream female MCs play into the sexist stereotypes that dot the genre, Weaver confidently places herself on equal footing with her male counterparts—“I’m striving to be one of the best, period/ Not just one of the best with breasts and a period,” she spits. Where most rappers on the radio are preoccupied with rims and grills, she’s drawing parallels between civilian displacement in Israel and the plight of gentrification victims in Detroit; where average MCs content themselves with riding the same recycled beats to the same clichéd conclusions, she’s rounding up the finest beatmakers of Motor City to create a debut that is both sonically diverse and conceptually challenging. The end result, is nothing short of staggering, a sure-footed bid for best underground hip-hop record of 2008 and a big “fuck you” to corporate hip-hop’s bloated complacence.