Writer's Block (The Movie)

Given the singles-oriented nature of the genre, it's not too surprising that you can count the number of great hip-hop concept albums on one hand — most of 'em coming from the dynamic Handsome Boy Modeling School duo of Prince Paul (see A Prince Among Thieves) and Dan "The Automator" Nakamura (see Dr. Octagonecologyst). But now Writer's Block (The Movie) can be added to that list: Over the course of 14 tracks, MC Capital D and production team the Molemen craft an imagery-filled tale as vivid as anything your average Hollywood writer could concoct. There's Eliza, a "Young Girl Lost" who left home at the age of 15 because her "two block radius was much too small/To contain her ambitions/With no inhibitions at all." There's "Mrs. Manley," the protagonist's elderly neighbor who "was like a surrogate mother for my family/It don't stop there, it's like the whole block/Used to treat her doorstep like a bus stop." And then there's Jay, a local thug who's "a magnet for trouble" and winds up the target of a drive-by in "Crossfire." These characters, and many more, are wound together in a well-crafted storyline that isn't so much about writer's block, the affliction, as it is about a writer with an impeccable eye for detail immersing the listener in the things he witnesses every day on his block. With the pitch-perfect production of the Molemen lending added emotion to each of Capital D's slice-of-street-life tales, Writer's Block really is like a movie waiting to get made.