"The Story" is Hip Hop's great cliche--our presumption that all artists have one, and they are all worth telling. Far be it from anyone to suggest otherwise, but minimally, it should be said that a great many artists offer their stories in a most underwhelming fashion. But Habit Blcx has broken the matrix with PIAP2. He is clear, forceful, sorrowfully introspective, inspirationally celebratory, and just the sort of artist our times demand. Never before, it would seem, has Hip Hop faced such intense crises: an internal battle over the direction of the culture and an unrelenting onslaught from those who've long hated the genre and sought its demise. This album is a remedy for both. "Progress is a Process 2" is lean and ambitious. In it, the musings of a brother refreshingly self-aware and self-critical, racked with worry about the world around him, and unafraid of casting his thoughts into the open. There are moments of streamed, ferocious, unfiltered consciousness, like that in "Pledge of Allegiance." There are moments of mature guidance and game-spitting, like those we hear in "Dreams Cost." And, classically, Habit Blcx offers a full, key-assisted chronology of his life on a smash among many, "High With You." "Progress is a Process 2" is the natural product of years of nurturing, from the nascent "Moblackwatah," to "Progress is a Process," and ultimately to the work before us today. It is timely. It is timeless