Indivisible even when they're devoted to solo recordings --
Young Spirit
,
Overload
, and
Vweto II
account for the artists' full-length dispatches from the previous two years alone -- and featured together on synchronous output from keen collaborators like
Dabrye
and
the Mixtapers
Georgia Anne Muldrow
Dudley Perkins
return with their third album as
G&D
. The two don't reconvene musically so much as they simply keep boogieing from project to project. On
Black Love & War
, they channel love for one another and their people, vexation in the face of escalating tyranny, and seemingly inextinguishable positivity into some of their most determined and stimulating funk.
Perkins
, gruff and lucid as ever, doesn't sugarcoat brutality or the objective in what
Muldrow
calls the "fight against greed," but he's bullish on a turnaround. His partner is just as militant and optimistic, whether she's chanting "One-eight-seven on a slave master" on "187," imagining clean air and water on "Peace Peace," or soothing and impelling on "The Battle." The latter track exemplifies the LP's underlying theme of resolute resistance over one of
's sci-fi blaxploitation-grade beats: "Sometimes you gotta stand and fight the battle -- don't let misery win over your mind." Communal in spirit still,
aren't above ceding the producer's chair or the mike to their friends. Suitably dramatic sounds from
Oh No
Mike & Keys
fill three tracks.
in fact hands off an especially galvanizing production to
Aloe Blacc
Ms. Dezy
, and under-recorded funkateer
LaToiya Williams
for "Smile," a cheery and lopsided composite of
the Doobie Brothers
Earth, Wind & Fire
. All three vocalists shine, and
drops in for a guest verse, beaming as he offers "We all should be smilin' just knowin' that the devil's reign is almost through." Coming from the rapper who on the same album laments murdered innocent children and eulogizes his father, the statement carries a whole lot of weight. ~ Andy Kellman