Albums

Finally, Oddjobs' end had been a good thing. These rappers from the Midwest have never been as interesting as when they split into two new acts, the fire-raising duo Power Struggle, and Kill the Vultures. The Careless Flame, one of the latter's LPs, confirmed it. After they merged jazz and rap in a punk and corrosive way, with their first record, they perfected the formula with the second one.

1999 was a year full of expectations, as far as the Arsonists' first album was concerned. Having become underground icons after a series of singles released on Fondle'em and Serchlite, their growing reputation had allowed them to join Matador. This rock label, at this time, was interested in the indie rap scene, having also signed Non Phixion. And it offered to the group formerly known as the Bushwick Bomb Squad, and affiliated to the famed Rock Steady Crew, a unique way to reach an extended audience with its incandescent kind of rap.

Stimulated by the rise of a new generation of creative artists, the old underground from the late 90's is currently looking like it is back from the dead. In 2012, several of its key players - El-P, Bigg Jus, Brother Ali, I Self Devine, Busdriver, Dose One, Radioinactive, and even Mhz - released an album sometimes after long years of silence. The most relevant of all, though, may very well be Aesop Rock.

So many years later, the bizarre and indigestible Pyramidi is just a distant memory, some remainder of the early 2000's and the short-lived abstract hip-hop era represented by labels such as Mush and Anticon. And though, and though… it aged much better that so many other records released by the same time by similar minded artists.

What made the difference between Good Things and other revivalist initiatives of the same kind, was Aloe Blacc's ability to update a well-known formula in an almost imperceptible way. It was, also, his superior feeling for music, which he developed by learning to play "real" instruments. It was thanks to these, and many other details, that Aloe proved that nu soul could be, at times, something much better than a tasteless old recipe for aging folks.

In the year 2000, the Micranots made an impression with Obelisk Movements, a record full of hallucinated and apocalyptic undie rap they had released under Bigg Jus' sponsorship, on his Sub Verse label. This had not been their first album, tough. As early as in the mid-90's, I Self Devine (MC) and Kool Akiem (DJ) had already recorded the Return of the Travellahs cassette, which easily bears the comparison with their later record.