Kardinal Offishall — Quest For Fire: Firestarter Vol.1:

The Dirty South, Compton, Queen's Bridge, Detroit, what! You can now add the T-Dot to that list. Or, at least, soon enough. When the kiddies get their hands on this one, they won't need to walk around pretending they're from New York anymore.

Fresh, loud and balanced, Quest For Fire has everything a good hip-hop album should have. Songs like "Bakardi Slang" and "H.U.S.S.L.I.N." are party songs. Then you have "UR Ghetto 2002" that is completely jokes. But, most importantly, you have the "think" songs; songs like "Man By Choice" or "G Walkin" make the album stand out from many hip-hop releases in the past few months.

Focusing on topics long-forgotten, like racism and politics, it will teach the listeners more than how much his ice weighs. Favorite line of the album: "The Prime Minister is actually second in command/bending over to the star-spangled political strangle." A little more sophisticated then "Oochie-wally-wally, oochie-bang-bang."

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