"Years and years ago, me and Prince [Poetry] had just signed to Hollywood Basic," Troy Jamerson says over the phone from Los Angeles. "And the A&R guy was like, 'I gotta take you guys to Seattle, Washington.' And Prince was like, 'Who the fuck is Attle Washington?'" Jamerson, better known as Pharoahe Monch, one of the absolute illest and technically gifted cats to ever MC, laughs deeply as he recounts the story of his previous Queens crew Organized Konfusion.

Since OK's heyday in the early to mid 1990s, Pharoahe's third-eye vision has remained squeaky clean and streak-free 20/20 through his solo work. Somewhere between the dark ruggedness of 1999's Internal Affairs and the uplifting soul-rock revival of 2007's Desire, Pharoahe's latest, W.A.R. (We Are Renegades), paints a portrait of a freedom-stripped near future that might as well be right now. "This is a war against consciousness/Control of your soul/Sort of a psychological dictatorship," Pharoahe spits on the title track.

"Most of the stuff you see [advertised] on TV is unnecessary clutter," he says. "Television, all media is clutter." Whether your drug is Symbicort, the NBA Finals, Real Housewives, or Wolf Blitzer, we're all affected to some degree by this pervasive psychic static. The omnipresent glow from laptops and smartphone screens, Pharoahe says, produces anxiety and robs our brains of rest.

"I just feel like Chuck D said: 'Rhyming for the sake of riddling.' I don't wanna waste people's time, and hope I have something to say... I feel like it's the perfect time to be an artist and not be restrained and held back by a corporation, and I think people are starving for voices and true music." Pharoahe Monch plays the Crocodile on Friday, June 10, with Scribes and TH3RD (JFK, Candidt, and Xperience).

I'm thinking back to the whirlwind of experience, whiskey, and masses of people that was SXSW this year. My favorite moment had to be when I struck out on my own and caught an off-grid outdoor punk-rock party. Looking for the way out, I stumbled on a set from Olympia-based anti-folker Kimya Dawson and was totally floored by the clarity and candidness I heard. In the midst of the loving press of strangers in that small pit, I noted MC Aesop Rock to one side. The next day, I went to see them together behind a pizzeria, and I watched the two perform "Walk Like Thunder," a moving (obliterating, really) homage to homies passed on: in Kimya's case, a friend who died from cancer; in Aesop's, his friend the great Camu Tao. This unlikely, excellent duo plays Neumos on Saturday, June 11 (with Ace Rock's Hail Mary Mallon–mates Rob Sonic and DJ Big Wiz), and together are real major medicine. Trust me and go see.