K. Sparks - Darkside ft. Nova

Last Manic Monday, K. Sparks sounded a little melancholy as he pondered whether there was really a Purpose behind his struggles.  Installment number 20, however, finds him back in fighting form and ready to take whoever will accompany him on a journey to the Darkside.  Opening with the oft-quoted snippet of dialogue from Reservoir Dogs’ Mr. Blonde, “Are you gonna bark all day, little doggy, [or are you gonna bite]?” the record finds Sparks and his Spittaz II partner in rhyme, Nova, doing plenty of both.  T-Mos (who also handled production duties on Spittaz II, Visual Sound, and Young Malcolm) provides a dramatic, piano-driven beat over which both emcees go just as hard as you’d expect – Nova notably compares his 16 [bars] to a semiautomatic M-16, while Sparks spits a verse dense with references, name-dropping everything from popular teppanyaki chain Benihana’s to Barney the dinosaur.  After 20 weeks of new material, Sparks is still going strong – we can only guess where he’ll take us on Manic Monday number 21.