Madlib the Beat Konducta, 'WLIB AM: King of the Wigflip' (BBE/Rapster)
Re-creating talk radio's mad flow, in spite of vocal duffs.
By Mosi Reeves 10.13.08 12:11 PM
What better metaphor for the prolific Madlib -- whose 2008 résumé includes R&B auteur Erykah Badu, hard-guy MC Guilty Simpson, and Brazilian drummer Ivan Conti -- than WLIB AM, the community-minded, black-owned New York talk-radio station?
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The Mighty Underdogs, 'Droppin’ Science Fiction' (Definitive Jux)
Lords of the underground settle in for a B-boy bull session.
By Mosi Reeves 10.09.08 1:06 PM
As the stalwart indie MCs now performing under the name Mighty Underdogs, Lateef (from Latyrx and Maroons) and Gift of Gab (from Blackalicious) sling rhymes with effortless wit and style.
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Termanology, 'Politics as Usual' (Nature Sounds)
1994 changed his life, and he's not gonna let anybody forget it.
By Mosi Reeves 09.30.08 10:22 AM
Emerging two years ago with the anthemic "Watch How It Go Down," Massachusetts-bred MC Termanology seemed destined for the spotlight, and on his debut full-length, he enlists a cast of storied producers who defined the classic '90s East Coast sound (from Large Professor to Buckwild to Nottz).
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Murs, 'Murs for President' (Warner Bros.)
Call him Barack O'Drama -- the rap game's agent of change.
By Mosi Reeves 09.30.08 10:17 AM
With his seventh solo album, this veteran Los Angeles MC really sounds like he's campaigning for higher office.
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Common Market, 'Tobacco Road' (Hyena)
Gritty Seattle hip-hoppers at play in the fields of the Lord.
By Mosi Reeves 09.08.08 1:48 PM
"This ain't a place for a man of faith," raps RA Scion on his duo's ambitious debut album. The Kentucky-born MC inhabits two roles -- a Christian preacher struggling to manage a Southern farm and a Northwest B-boy navigating the music industry -- while his twisty parables mix radical politics with bleak confrontations between the working man and the system recalling a John Steinbeck novel.
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Invincible, 'ShapeShifters' (Emergence)
She makes Miss Rap Supreme look like a sad, bedroom farce.
By Mosi Reeves 08.20.08 2:09 PM
Once touted by rap critics as the female Eminem, teen prodigy Invincible has grown into a compelling and fiercely political artist. On her inspired debut, the now 27-year-old underground MC describes her native Detroit with skilled perception, pointing out its class warfare and gentrification ("Deuce/Ypsi" and "Locusts") and grieving the late hip-hop icon J Dilla ("In the Mourning").
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