Nottingham, East Midlands, England, United Kingdom emcee/producer Cappo concluding the CAPStone trilogy with his 10th studio LP. Known for being 1/2 of Oblique Strategies & 1/3 of VVV, he also has all 9 of his previous full-lengths as well as 8 extended plays & a mixtape under his belt over the course of his career spanning a quarter of a century. Coming off both the S.T.A.R.V.E. (Striving To Achieve Real Values Everywhere) EP & his previous album Houses however, ITO looks to complete the 15 month saga.

The self-produced title track opens up taking some instrumentally kinda has a psychedelic rock vibe to it taking about becoming a scholar reporting from a foreign ground whereas “White” takes a groovier approach to the beat building a step-by-step booklet for others to get their hands on. Sam Zircon gives “Perquod” a cavernous boom bap atmosphere that I really dig making sure weak links are broken off the chain & forgotten leading into “Red” produced by King Kashmere talking about him setting shit ablaze.

“Greene” nears the halfway point of ITO discussing how lyrics keep his mind full & his body solid over some pianos while “Frost” kicks off the 2nd half hopping over a spaciously drumless instrumental looking to leave a set of 4 walls. “Gold” embraces a higher form of lexicon over a funky Dr. Zygote beat while “X” likens himself to the late Malcolm X himself in the sense of being a dangerous force & talks about the fact that he never migrated.

The oldest AEW TNT Champion, former ROH World Tag Team Champion, ROH World 6-Man Tag Team Champion, NWA World Tag Team Champion, 3-time WWE Intercontinental Champion, 2-time WWE United States Champion, 5-time WWE tag team champion & 7-time WWE Hardcore Champion Dustin Rhodes gets referenced at the beginning of “Z” sampling “Where I’m From” by JAY-Z while the synth-laced “Berry” talks about leaving something behind when he dies. “Glaze” spends the final minutes of ITO staying committed to metronomes.

Taking the abstract themes & temporally linear narrative that respectively made S.T.A.R.V.E. (Striving To Achieve Real Values Everywhere) & Houses so impressive to me, ITO combines aspects of both it’s predecessors acting as a conceptual thread that links together each piece of the CAPStone trilogy & Cappo gives the audience their own choice of either listening to it as an introduction &/or a conclusion to this arc spanning over an entire year in addition to his ripping the series’ strongest set of production to shreds with his deep lyricism.

Score: 4/5

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