Hi-Tek is hardly a celebrated producer, but he has produced mostly great works, recently and consistently. He also shares an invaluable technique with many big league beatsmiths: an uncanny ability to make the beat sound great (even if it’s not) and make even the most lyrically inept artists sound appealing. Hi-Teknology 2: The Chip is a powerful reminder of what makes Hi-Tek one of the greatest producers of all time.
Hi-Tek Makes His Presence Known on Hi-Teknology 2
More like a maestro, Tek enlists, appoints, and commands all the artists to do as fits in his agenda. He does everything but really rap on this album. From the beginning, Hi-tek alerts listeners that the album, despite myriad guests, is not only his, but his pride, conspicuously on display for all to hear. Tekzilla prefaces the album with the title track “The chip,” where he talks of the people who "love the beats by the pound." He goes on in a rambling tongue but not without mentioning the source and audience of this opus: "for the streets, for the car, and for the n***** who count their ones."
Tek conducts a freight train of guests (Common, Ghostface Killah, The Game, etc) through wistful nostalgia (“Can We Go Back”), historical legacy (“Where it started(NY)”) and the amorphous love. Love is the bubbling sub-plot of this jaunt; love of life (“Josephine”), love of music (“Music for Life”), love of reason (“Let it go”), and finally love of love (“Baby We can do it”). Tek transforms this compilation into a trove of his personal stories and adventures, and invites his friends to contribute and compel.
Tek Takes It Back to the Basics
Hi-Teknology 2 has a distinct vintage feel that dares to engage the ears in a test of chronology. Nowhere is this more apparent than on “Where it all Started”. Jadakiss gives an exhaustive history of an artillery and narcotic era New York, “hand skills, hawk work, gun play, whatever duke, ecstasy, oxy, viconin, powder, ary, haze, diesel, sour…dorms, cells, packages, mail, warrants, bails, everything’s real”. Kiss effortlessly spits a rigid litany of New York Zeitgeist in an dead pan manner that casts a pall for the duration of the song. Papoose follows and gets away with his trademark big-concept-poor-metaphor rhymes that have become rote techniques, “all I got is my words and my nuts, man I got Brooklyn in my balls, so you can see Bedford in my draws." (Eeek!) This is not at all a drawback in an otherwise brilliantly executed song that features two other NY stalwarts: Raekwon and Talib Kweli.
Hi-Teknology 2 Is a Dedication, Not a Compilation
As the album progresses, its identity and circumstances become clearer; this is no compilation or even a run-of-the-mill album, but a rare, precious treasure that Tek uncovers in a chest of betrayal, promise, love, and passion. Nas makes a crucial appearance on “Music for life”, a paean to not only the power of music, but to music’s existence. The backdrop is marked by a beautiful, soothing lithe flute scale that cradles the track on its theme of life. Common bleeds his soul to and for the music, “I reached a point in my life where I was needin’ the mic /No second guessing /Self expression and lessons learned”.
The album illustrates the raw, gritty, dour essence of classic hip-hop on “So Tired” a frightening testimony of “smoking to get high”. Bun B practically screeches a complete verse out of a dark, despondent, milieu of “a little purp in my swisha, a little purp in the cup, a little purp in my system, and I can get myself up”. This track marks “the chip” of Tek’s genius.
The Bottom Line on Hi-Teknology 2: The Chip
Throughout the LP, Tek’s influence is always at the forefront as each song features an artist or three helping him uncover his New York pride. The album is outstanding with upstanding talk and understanding moments that betray its exterior as a compilation and slowly materializes as a dedication to many things, places and people.
Outstanding Tracks from Hi-Teknology 2
- "So Tired"
- "Music for life"
- "Where it all started"
- "Josephine"
