Speakerboxxx/The Love Below Review

Splitting it was an admission that the partnership had already ended, and the honesty is part of why it works. The first half is a hard, horn driven funk record with tight drums and a rapper doing what he does better than almost anyone, and Ghetto Musick is the most aggressive thing in the catalogue. The second is a jazz and soul cabaret with almost no rapping at all, sung in falsetto over live piano and strings, and it is either charming or exhausting depending on your tolerance for a man talking to himself in French.

Hey Ya is a perfect pop record about a failing relationship. Roses is very funny. The Way You Move is the other giant. At two and a quarter hours it is far too long and there are skits nobody has listened to twice. As a monument to ambition it is unarguable.