All I need is vinyl, food, weed, and crew…
Specs One has crafted a rarefied mystique all his own over years of penning rhymes and making beats. An enigmatic vet dedicated to his own brand of idiosyncratic invention, his minimalist, experimental creations are bedrock grounded in true school ethics, whose ultimate commandment has been and always will be “come original.” His newest album—somewhat schizophrenically credited to Mic Mulligan (MC) and S. Future (beats)—is the weededed sci-fi opera Original Space Neighbors, released on Sun City Girls’ Abduction Records. OSN is in fact a natural extension of Specs’s cryptic intercepted-transmission steez, sounding like the long-lost memoirs of some lonesome interstellar b-boy, stranded in a square dimension; it’s equal parts dusted William Shatner and Octavia Butler and Ken Nordine’s “Word Jazz.” Dope moments like “Too Much Science” and album closer “Outerspace”—where Specs goes hard on haters, hipsters, and critics (and god help you if you’re all three)—just make you wish he’d bless more of the tracks; sometimes you zone on his dusted loops and forget it’s not an instrumental LP. However, this is all part of the S’s blueprint, seeing as how that’s been a feature of every Specs album I’ve yet heard (2001’s Numerology and 2004’s Return of the Artist being my faves). Whatever your take, I’d caution against you ever sleeping on the NW’s own hiphop cult hero.
Speaking of cult heroes—way back in ’96 the sibling trio known as the Juggaknots (Breeze Brewin, Buddy Slim, and Herawin) dropped the indisputable underground classic Clear Blue Skies on Bobbito‘s storied Fondle ‘Em Records (after it was shelved by the now-defunct East West). Dropping the same year as the original Funcrusher, the intricate styles on this EP helped define underground hiphop as it’s known today. The respect that Breeze commands from the underground’s elite—from Slug to El-P to Sage Francis—for his indelible contributions, attest to his crew’s durability, even though they have maintained a milk-carton low profile. Despite the platinum respect earned, many only know Breeze from his turn as the protagonist in Prince Paul‘s A Prince Among Thieves—or perhaps from his membership in the Weathermen with fellow indie-rap icons Cage and El-Producto. One can only hope a new generation will now get open off this Boogie-Down family band, as their first new LP in 10 years, Use Your Confusion, is more than a worthy follow-up. Not missing a beat, the Juggs keep shit provocative by applying their signature complex rhyme schemes to production (mostly by Breeze and Slim) that shuffles from Doom-type dusty (“Liar, Liar”) to Outkast-style trippiness (“Use Your Confusion”) without ever sounding out of place. The members’ way non-baller career choice of recent years—as public-school teachers—has not dulled their poison wit; rather, it’s honed their perspective as venerated indie rap alums. Check “30 Something” featuring Sadat X for a glimpse, or even “Namesake,” where the Brewin candidly runs down the considerable Jugga pedigree with painstaking detail. One day, they’ll talk about seminal albums in the “grown-ass rap” category—and here’s your chance to get ahead of the curve right now. 