The Streets - Everything is Borrowed

Everything is Borrowed (2008, 679) The Streets' fourth studio album. **1/2

Mike Skinner, better known as his alias the Streets, tries to hit hard with Everything is Borrowed. He brings up plenty of issues; religion, global warming, danger of right-wing politics, just to name a few. His delivery is less than spectacular. Not only is his heavy British accent annoying, he even fails to come up with interesting background music, which is supposed to help distinguish hip-hop from rap. On top of all this, Skinner's style is lazy, more like an average slam poetry convention but without the passion. Sure, there's an interesting synth progression on the opening track, but beyond that he fails to do anything that interesting. His 'messages' are less than interesting and have been said far better. So what's left? A meaningless entry by a near-meaningless artist.