I never thought this would be the case, but I kinda feel bad for Little Brother. Their caricatures of hip-hop boogeymen were never going to change anyone's mind about, say, DipSet, but the rush to caricature them as the backpacker fun police instead of talented rappers almost certainly resulted in people slagging off worthy projects like Foreign Exchange, the Chittlin' Circuit, and, oddly enough, their mixtape with DJ Drama.
To their credit, Little Brother have gone to lengths to make things right themselves. The key lyric on LeftBack, Little Brother's presumably final studio album is, "Not mad at the radio/ 'Cause I don't know what's on it." There is a subtle yet important shift in tone here: On albums past, this message might've been meant as a boast. On LeftBack, Little Brother acknowledge that rather than being defined by their perceived opposition, they're but one of many options.
Little Brother were always pretty entertaining when they weren't burdening themselves with hip-hop's salvation, but ultimately your enjoyment of LeftBack can boil down to whether you care about Phonte and Pooh debating if they can leave the game alone when it doesn't need them. Even on the triumphant career retrospective "Curtain Call", the two can't help but live with regret, blaming The Minstrel Show's commercial failure on listeners not appreciating "the real on the reel."
More than ever, Little Brother appear to be a two sides to one group; duality informs nearly the entirety of LeftBack. There's almost an even split between "for the love" rap ciphers with peers like Truck North and Khrysis, and "for your love" relationship songs. Big Pooh comes off like the guy who's most intent on pursuing a new solo career, but he continues to be casually outshined by Phonte, whose nonchalance deflates even his corniest rhymes ("not being Cam'ron-ish, I mean diplomatic"). And while Phonte is trying to establish himself as viable outside of his collaborations, he constantly questions his commitment-- he appreciates what "the kids" are doing, but admits, "one day I was playin' my old shit like 'who the fuck is this, I kinda miss this dude.'"
But even those of us who don't have an issue with their subject matter have been subjected to increasingly monochromatic listening experiences. Used to be you could blame that on 9th Wonder, but even with other producers, Phonte and Pooh seem incapable of rapping over something other than mostly interchangeable soul backdrops with papery drums that split the difference between handclaps and snares. Phonte raps, "fuck if I'm goin' to be doin' this shit when I'm 60," but Little Brother were always well-suited to the mindset of rap as easy-listening.
In the end, the finality of LeftBack sticks with you more than anything, because unlike many rappers promising the same thing, Little Brother seem like they really mean it-- not to mention that a three-way Twitter beef with 9th Wonder over a disputed beat really felt like the final coffin nail, appropriate for a group whose narrative took place almost entirely on the Internet. But if LeftBack really is the end for Little Brother, it's a fitting epitaph for a likeable act who just could never seem to get out of their own way.
