None of the 22 tracks on Black Belt Theatre are really hitting hard. To a large extent, Planet Asia delivers battle and »represent« tracks. Now a lot of artists successfully manage to distract from a lack of strong concepts by picking beats or rapping in a way that makes you forget about a general idea. On this album however, the formula of distraction doesn’t kick in and all that’s left is a lot of monotony. What we get is standard clichés, standard phrases and little really personal content so that the whole affair remains below Asia’s actual potential. A few of the beats start off nicely, but about 20 seconds later most of the »loop tolerance«, which rap fans tend to have a lot of, is gone and forces you to skip to the next song. Only on Daggers and Darts, Whirlwind Patterns or External Motives the beats bring some »relief«. Not really high-, but rather mid-lights are the return of the Cali Agents on Bruce Lee, the thoughts about the female gender on Furniture and the career retrospect on Tell the World. The initial words of »I do this shit to feed my kids« are respectable, but leave the impression that the artist has become subordinate to the breadwinner in this case. Even features by the likes of Talib Kweli, Raekwon or Camp Lo hardly improve the overall feeling.
Black Belt Theatre
