Today’s Sounds: Blu & Exile
There is nothing lazier in music journalism than comparative analysis. You know the type: “This is better than II but not as good as III.”
In this case, that would be elephant-in-a-room-a-vision. The MC/producer team’s 2007 debut LP, Below the Heavens, entered the chamber with a humble 3,000-copy run and soared to top-shelf status on word of mouth and digital do-wrongery, becoming probably the most classic rap album no one actually owns a copy of — including, as of early 2011, Exile himself.