S.H.A.D.O.W.

Even in a rap game that focuses on excess — too many women, too much money, too much fame — Shadow ‘s second full-length album, Friends Orchestrate Enemies, stands out for its abundance. On his 19 tracks, Shadow has a lot he needs to get off his chest. The production on Orchestrate — which is doper than an Amsterdam café — saves the album from its own length. A Mickey Mouse Club-infused beat and a talented but anonymous female MC make “Kansas City” an early front-runner for this year’s best homage to the town. Shadow, a St. Louis native, quips, I’m not Jo Jo/But KC raised me like a brother. Hints of electronica lace the hard-hitting “Certified G,” and a ribbon of violin unspools through the album’s title track. Eclectic production leaps from soul sample to reggae as Shadow balances each track with alternately vulnerable and cocksure lyrics. He gets serious on “Can’t Change Me,” rhyming out his determination to maintain his identity beneath the compromising specters of money, women and, alas, the game. “This one is more for the people,” Shadow tells an interviewer on the album’s preamble. If the people appreciate a collection of diverse beats fronted by a lyrical MC, indeed it is.