Jean Grae News: Jean Grae

Jean Grae Magazine - news, reviews, videos, photo gallery and free mp3 playlist.

Though it bears only one name on its cover, it’s best to consider Jeanius a duet between its top-billed MC and producer-cum-N.C. hip-hop poster-boy 9th Wonder. Here, 9th’s production serves to complement Jean Grae’s vocal counterpoint, with snappy beats sounding far more energized than anything 9th has offered us lately (witness this year’s lukewarm collab with Buckshot, The Formula) and his trademark spliced-soul samples buttressing Grae’s verses. And in like fashion, Grae complements her producer, her voice flowing with the beat rather than just on top of it.

The duo’s dynamic lends the album a smoothness born not of complacency, but...