Reviews
"Staples has become an increasingly powerful communicator, and on SUMMERTIME '06, his lines are sharp enough that every word digs into meat...", "Staples’ wickedly backward upbringing is the focus of Summertime ’06, which could well be the fiercest, most ferociously focused street-oriented double rap album since UGK’s Underground Kingz.", "The music sticks to this claustrophobic reality in inventive ways: lumbering BPMs, Halloween piano riffs dripping with paranoia, looped murmurs that sound like angry whale songs, lo-fi 808s filtered through fever dreams....The album paints a vivid picture.", 3.5 stars out of 5 -- "Staples flows effortlessly, suggesting a capable understudy of Kendrick Lamar or Earl Sweatshirt....It adds up to a hard-hitting 20-track portrait of life and love in a mad city.", "Staples astutely addresses issues of race, violence, and inequality on a double album that’s the year’s best hip-hop debut."
