by Crystal Erickson
7/21/09

Obviously the home of Be Girl Be would have several female emcees of distinction, with Maria Isa being at the top of the roster. The Sotarican musician has earned plenty of street cred in recent years, voted as the City Pages best hip-hop musician in 2006 and releasing M.I. Split Personalities the following year.  On her debut, Isa embraces her Nuyorican roots and love of hip-hop, all the while fulfilling the record title by taking up several different personas to reconcile the different styles. Isa lives up to that split persona, not only because of her Sotarican roots, but in her mixture of song and rap, beats and band, social issues with party hits, English and Puerto Rican.

I first knew of Maria Isa as an MC, given her first album is more hip-hop than anything. But on the follow up, Street Politics, Isa branches out into different directions, producing an album with more mainstream appeal in its favoring of English over Spanish, and giving up the hip-hop for a band. There’s still hip-hop, but also goes into R&B style vocals while retaining her own style.

"Image" is a great bridge of the first album to the second, by combining the singing and rhyming, beats and band, Spanglish with English, all within the first 30 seconds of the album. Her style has grown soulful, reaching the level of love ballad on “Never Let Go,” a duo with Muja Messiah as powerful as her collaboration on his album, but a completely different style of music, held together by the chemistry and versatility of the pair. “Caramelo” is as addictive as the chocolate bar, and goes down just as easy. Isa gets serious about the ills of urban life with Killa Capone on “Street Politics,” and pays tribute to her late uncle and godfather on “Rest in Peace.”

By the end of album, Isa has proven she can do it all, but modestly ends the album with “After Party,” a nice showcase of the capabilities of the Maria Isa band. The track is a throwback to what the musician is most commonly recognized for—high energy reggaeton, which doesn’t show up as much on Street Politics, but remains strong within the musician’s wide-ranging repertoire.