Overlooked: Saigon’s “Greatest Story Never Told 2” (Album Review) Posted by Dharmic X on 11/12/12 | Filed under Opinion, Album Reviews, Saigon, Overlooked

A Note from Nathan S: So much new music comes out every week I can't possibly keep up with it all, even only the RefinedHype worthy-material. So the homie Dharmic X is going to be shining a spotlight on some dope albums that got "Overlooked".

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When Saigon’s "The Greatest Story Never Told" finally dropped in February of 2011, the hip-hop community that had been rooting for him to escape from the cancerous situation over at Atlantic Records breathed a sigh of relief. As critically acclaimed as the album was, the questions still remained: what would the next move be? Would it take another four years to release a follow-up album?

The answer turned out to be no. Equipped with an independent label situation through Suburban Noize, Sai has managed to release his follow-up LP, "The Greatest Never Told 2: Bread & Circuses", within two years. And the result is a thematically dense album that keeps you engaged with its rich production.

"Bread & Circuses" is a concept-driven album, which seems pretty obvious from the title alone (Bread and circuses is a phrase that dates back to the Roman Empire which explains the way the leaders tried to appease the citizenry: by staging gladiatorial contests and offering the people free grain). This project uses that lense to analyze the rap industry in the 21st Century. Take “Rap vs. Real” for example. One line says it all: “The hundred keys you said you flip on the track: that’s wack; Max B fighting for that appeal: that’s real.” In this song, Sai emphasizes that the entertainment mainstream rappers are providing in their music is glorified fantasy.

At the same time, Saigon is careful to make the project more than just vain laments and gripes about the way business is handled in the game. The standout track “Blown Away” pays homage to those whose attempts at advocating for social causes led to them getting killed. Fittingly, Sai adds himself to the end of the song, prophesizing his own potential demise for fighting against the system.

Most importantly, this isn’t a political sermon delivered over beats. Saigon shines the most when bringing the material back home and talking about himself and his own personal struggles. The first verse of “When Will U Love Me,” produced by Rich Kidd, gets very introspective, trying to figure out his place in the afterlife and the impact his music will leave over time. Meanwhile, “The Game Changer,” featuring the incredible voice of Marsha Ambrosius, goes into detail about his past, the obstacles he dealt with going through the major labels and the after-effects of his successful run on the television show Entourage. But at the same time, he also talks about the uncertainty of his future, asking, “Will I ever be on Hot 9 or Power again?” With these personal accounts, the rest of the album becomes that much easier to relate to.



To label Saigon as a “typical NYC boom-bap rapper” would be a terrible misjustice. The Brooklyn MC has always been a hard-hitting lyricist, but the beats he has rhymed over have always been a little more diverse. Bread & Circuses manages to take this to another level. It starts with the Just Blaze-produced opening track, “Plant the Seed (What U Paid For),” which has a very anthemic feel. Then you have a song like “Let Me Run,” produced by DJ Corbett, which has the feel of a Z-100 record (in fact, you could argue that the hook, done by Corbett himself, feels too polished within the context of the album). There’s a diversity of sounds from track-to-track on this project, and the beats have a lot of movement and changes within the songs themselves. And yet the project still manages to come together very nicely amidst the diversity, held together by the weight of the subject matter, the tracks complementing each other well.

The features serve their purpose for the most part on "Bread & Circuses". The three guest verses--Styles P, Lecrae, and Stic.Man of Dead Prez--all fill in ably and body their appearances. Lecrae especially shines on “Best Thing That I Found,” another standout performance that validates him within the broader hip-hop community after being placed in the “Christian hip-hop” box for so many years. Meanwhile, Marsha and Andreena Mill (“When Will U Love Me”) particularly shine with their vocal appearances on the chorus. Chamillionaire drops off a hook on “Keep Pushing,” a fitting choice considering his own battles through major label purgatory (that sadly still continue), but the hook feels a little watered down thanks to the light autotune effect underneath. It’s pretty unnecessary; the Houston rapper has proven that he’s capable of harmonizing quite effectively without the need of robotic sound effects.



At eighteen songs, there is a lot of material to digest, and it’s typically very heavy material at that. This is the type of album that you will appreciate even more each time you listen to it. That said, "The Greatest Story Never Told 2: Bread & Circuses" is not a boring album in the least; in fact, you get the feeling that a major label would have been able to push a couple of these records onto commercial radio had they accepted the realness within the subject matter. Overall, Saigon manages to follow-up a very successful debut album with another complete project that follows in the same vein while remaining original.

See Also: Overlooked: Journalist 103’s “Reporting Live” (Album Review)