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After his death at age 32, in 2006, James Yancey's catalog remains fodder for bootlegs, reissues, and retrospectives.

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"This monkey on my back is still flinging shit at me,” announces Cage on “Nothing Left to Say,” his third album’s harrowing opening salvo. In years past, that meant getting into fistfights with other rappers, being photographed with cocaine-stuffed baggies, and complaining to anyone who’d listen that Eminem bit his style.

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Best known as the distinctive voice of backpack hip-hop faves Jurassic 5, Chali 2na is sometimes reduced to a supporting role on his solo debut. Still, he surrounds himself with crack producers -- Jake One, Scott Storch, and others -- who drop slick, thumping tracks sweetened by background singers and melodious hooks from Anthony Hamilton and Beenie Man.

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Sa-Ra's rep as future-soul avatars has seemed more myth than reality, with a messy discography that includes an unreleased debut for Kanye West's G.O.O.D. Music (part of which emerged on 2007's The Hollywood Recordings) and several contributions to Erykah Badu's epic New Amerykah Part One (4th World War).

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This collaboration between Tom Morello and the Coup's Boots Riley promises an ecstatic agit-rap mash-up of scratch-guitar licks and grassroots socialist exhortations. But their debut suffers from Morello's uneven arrangements, which vacillate between rousing hardcore funk and predictable hard-rock crunch.

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Poor Busdriver. If, as he claims, "underground hip-hop happened ten years ago," then who will understand Jhelli Beam's sharp-elbowed riddles?