Man Plans God Laughs

Background

The title of the album, "Man Plans God Laughs", is a well known English translation of a Yiddish proverb: "Der mentsh trakht un got lakht"as reported in the The Forwardand reviewed on Pitchfork.The album was discussed on former US Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney's Facebook page

The album is a critique on corporate domination of the recording industry, what Chuck D calls a "corporate plantation". According to Chuck D "CBS, RCA and EMI, today's music-biz corporateplantationopolies are Apple, Google and Facebook. The pigs are walking as tall as the men, but it's impossible to say which is which." He adds "I feel like the government controls the media and the people are not being fed the truth. The subtitle for Yo! Bum Rush The Show was 'The Government's Responsible.' Today, it's like 'The Governments Are All Responsible'." He says the album's title 'Man Plans God Laughs' was inspired by legendary basketball player Dr.J (Julius Erving) mentioning the proverb in the documentary about him ‘The Doctor’. Chuck D had narrated the project. He says "When Dr.J said it, he was referring to all his plans for him and his brother, and then his brother passed away. That spoke volumes." Chuck says, "The message I got from that was, 'Stay humble'." It is not known if Chuck D knew the source of the proverb before titling the album. He also included the song 'Mine Again' written ten years earlier about African Americans feeling conflicted about their African roots

Critical reception

Man Plans God Laughs received generally positive reviews from music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 70 based on 7 reviews, which indicates "generally favorable reviews".

Track listing

All tracks are produced by Gary G-Wiz