Music seems to be going through a wave of darker themes, as evident from both the electronic and hip hop worlds. Of course happy-go-lucky music will always be bumping at every party, but it just seems like 2010's (as a decade) might be a transitional period in which the music world juggles both styles.
With this, more serious themes beyond just the good times can be exposed, and bring awareness to some of the pain and problems in our society. Rapper/Producer MR gives us a dose of reality with his new mixtape, My Rhymes Vol. 1 : Da Monster & Me. It's a dark look into the struggle of the class system in the US, and a heavy one-two punch for those of us pretending that everything is sex, drugs, and rock n' roll (well, rap in this case), all the time. While nowhere near as radical as some artists have gotten, it's more of a venture into the struggles we might wish we didn't have to know about. Ignorance is bliss, but MRI uses his talent to break that barrier down. Highlights of the mixtape include "God Knows" and "That's Life 2.0," and all of the tracks are available on Datpiff.
