I hadn't heard of Mike Ladd before receiving this album, and I guess I was slightly daunted by reviewing another hip-hop album after my severely negative reaction to Fear of a Black Planet earlier this week. Of course, hip-hop is a diverse genre, and it's immoral to judge someone for the iniquities of another. So, I postponed reviewing this for a few days in order to try and approach it open-mindedly. And I liked it, but I didn't love it. Mind, I get a few hints that this is a album not really seeking to be loved. From what I have gathered, Mike Ladd is a whale of an MC in the underground hip-hop brigade who happens to have been a lecturer on poetry at NYU. And I can't deny that this album is a dense, intricately constructed work. The album explicitly draws influence from Afrofuturism and, more broadly, science fiction. 1984, Blade Runner and the works of William Gibson all get allusions, and the bonkers Saturnian jazz leader Sun Ra casts an immense shadow over this album. As such, one can admire the grand scope and craft of Welcome to the Afterfuture, but one can also recognise that such a enterprise will leave some cold: some people just despise sci-fi as tedious piffle. Me, I can enjoy the occasional knee-trembler with, say, a Kubrick film or a JG Ballard novel, but I have no yearning to tackle any form of Dune. This album will appeal to some as much as it will appal others, and others like me will just consider it alright. I should point out as well that the album is rather low-key in its tone. This album isn't hook driven, nor especially virtuousic lyrically. The craft can't really be faulted, but it doesn't elate. I believe this is purposeful; the themes invite contemplation, not joy. This is an album best enjoyed alone, gone midnight. It's an album to admire, not adore. But the by, on the song The Animist, he talks about what his name would be if he were Jewish (Jared), Muslim (Ibrahim) and Catholic (Chris). The name Mike, which I assume is short for Michael, comes from the Old Testament, meaning it's a Jewish and latterly Christian name (and Michael is an archangel in Islam, though I don't know if Michael is a common name in Islamic cultures). Did he forget his own name?