The Gates Mixed Plate

Arriving just 15 months after his last collabos album (Sickology 101), nine months after his last official album (K.O.D.), four months after a remix EP (The Lost Scripts of K.O.D.), and probably just days after he got off one of his never-ending tours, the high-quality Gates Mixed Plate finds eccentric rapper Tech N9ne in the “prolific” category, but not the “overly prolific” category. If that doesn’t seem like a feat, take into consideration that there are no less than 21 quality tracks included here and Tech himself goes hard the whole way, even when he could coast on the skills of all his collabo partners. Top it off with one of Tech’s few solo tracks, the party-starter “O.G.,” being the supreme highlight and the man’s ability to churn it out is nothing if not impressive. Plus he’s cool enough to drop a Zapp reference (“Get her hot and ready/Listening to Roger Troutman”) and smart enough to return to some good-time music after the great but horribly dark K.O.D. All that said, his collabos series is comprised of very loose albums when compared to his normal releases, so give it a try once you’ve checked his regular output.