Black Thought explained the origin of the album's subtitle: "The producer, Sean C, his last name is Cane ... He's quite literally Sean Cane. And me being one of the most able MCs, it's a play on words as a nod to my ability and to him actually being Cane. And then also too, just a sign of the times, so to speak, and the original sin, I guess. It spoke to all those different things, so it made perfect sense to subtitle the album."[1]
Streams of Thought, Vol. 3: Cane & Able was met with generally favorable reviews from critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, the album received an average score of 74, based on five reviews.[2]Kitty Empire of The Guardian commended Black Thought's lyricism, writing that "this veteran polemicist is on fire, his learned invective weaponised to meet the present moment."[5] Veteran critic Tom Hull described the album as "conscious and hard", noting that Sean C's production is "not as supple as [the Roots'], but more to the point."[8] Stephen Kearse of Pitchfork praised Black Thought for his "ability to use words as textures as much as tools", and concluded, "it's that ingrained instinct that saves Vol 3. from falling prey to the same monotony and excess as an Eminem or Royce album."[7]
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