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The Daily Tar Heel

Ill Harmonics Unleash Christian Rap; Portable Vents


Take Two
Three Stars

The Christian rap duo Ill Harmonics varies the music on Take Two, its first album after its 2000 debut with An Octave Above the Original. Some songs boast car-shaking bass while others infuse Spanish guitar, maracas and trumpets, making for an atypical rap album.

The duo might be Christian rappers, but the songs don't shove God and Bible verses in your face. With a laid-back style, the band comments on faith and destiny and mentions God tactfully.

While the music behind the rhymes is inventive and fun, the lyrics often fall flat. Some of the defining characteristics of rap music -- sex, drinking, drugs and fun -- are, as to be expected, absent from the album. Most of the songs have a freestyle quality, and the lyrics seem pointless and don't branch out.

In fact, one lyric is laugh-out-loud funny -- beginning a song with "Playdough's the name." Singing "Playdough" with a hard-core, serious delivery was pure comedy in itself. But compound this delivery with the fact that it's impossible to take a guy named Playdough seriously.

Outkast they're not, but the creativity exhibited by Ill Harmonics is reminiscent of the originality produced by the southern rappers. Tempo and style vary throughout the LP, making each song different.

And while these songs might use similar techniques, the duo occasionally infuses Spanish-tinged styles that sound as different from the purely American tracks as they do from each other; the rhythms of "Destiny" and "San Jose" both boast a Latin feeling, but each keeps its own individuality that sets it apart from more standard fare like "The Crowd is Standing."

"Destiny" showcases the album's other side, one infused with Spanish rhythms. The song is also more spiritual than other songs, eloquently expressing the duo's opinion that they were called by God to sing. Rapping "Speakin' parable not fable cause eternally the truth is the only thing that's stable/ A call that many have had but few have chosen," they touch on Christianity without forcing it upon the audience.

And like "The Crowd is Standing," the album's title track features a driving bass beat with superior lyrics, following the more traditional concept of rapping. Behind the chorus of "Take two and ma

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