Posted on 09/22/2005

 

After being paraded at random live shows for years by everyone from Jay-Z to Wyclef, 2004 was a breakout year for Miri Ben-Ari. The Israeli-born, classically-trained violinist with a penchant for hip hop was thrust into the spotlight for her production and arrangement work on Kanye West's The College Dropout, and her appearance in Twista's "Overnight Celebrity" video. This is when we found out her third album would be a hip-hop compilation. And we waited. And waited. And now, more than a year too late, The Hip-Hop Violinist finally drops, to little fanfare. "We Gonna Win" is solid, finding D-Block's Styles P rapping his usual thug posturing over a fairly basic military march drumbeat, enhanced by Miri's fanciful string-work. The ever-AWOL Pharaohe Monch shows up on "New World Symphony", the best track on the album. Monch raps like he hasn't in years (well, he pretty much hasn't) over Ben-Ari's classic violin melody, although the song suffers from corny-chorus syndrome (a chorus singing "we'll kick your ass" is a bit too strange for me).

Although billed as The Hip-Hop Violinist, the album features more R&B than hip hop. Anthony Hamilton guests twice, first on "She Was Just A Friend", a soulful tune about cheating that just barely manages to escape typical R&B cliché. "Sunshine to the Rain" has Hamilton singing about perseverance as Geto Boy Scarface recounts stories of his childhood over a somewhat generic violin arrangement. Akon and Lil' Mo also show up giving decent performances, but neither of their contributions, nor Miri's arrangements, make for any breakthroughs.



iri's friends at GOOD Music return her many favors, to generally good results (no pun intended). "I've Been Waiting On You" features John Legend and Consequence spitting game to a girl, while "Fly Away" has Kanye West (not on his A-game, rap-wise, as usual in his guest appearances) along with Musiq and Fabolous in an unlikely collaboration that works for the most part.

The Hip-Hop Violinist also takes some risks. Cash Money cohorts Baby and Lil Wayne, the most unlikely collaborators on the album, contribute to "4 Flat Tires", which surprisingly finds Ben-Ari adjusting well to playing a southern-fried melody, although the Cash Money crew provides its usual mindless rambling. Equally mindless is the bland and generic reggae-tinged "Jump and Spreadout" which also has the most annoying voice in hip hop, Fat Man Scoop, screaming all sorts of stupidity. Even more questionable is the reggaeton remix of this song with Pitbull and Zion y Lennox, which likely was done as a way to jump on the recent reggaeton bandwagon. Hip-hop veteran and beatbox king, Doug E. Fresh, duets with Miri on a version of the "Star Spangled Banner", which is an interesting arrangement but nothing anyone will want to hear more than once.



romised collaborations with Mya, Twista, Joe Budden, E-40 and Lil Flip are nowhere to be found. And while Miri's guest work on other productions has worked, an entire album based mostly on her violins becomes somewhat tedious after several listens. The album has its moments, but is just too little, too late for someone who missed their buzz by more than a year.