Framework's debut CD Hello World is dense, heavy, bold, and brassy. The beats are high energy and the tempo of the rapping is strangely calm. Framework (aka Keith Russell) never works up a sweat, but the world around him swirls tirelessly. We hear the arrival of cop cars, the departure of emergency vehicles, and the constant static of personal and public telecommunication systems. There's corner chatter here, alley echoes there, and all around us are the rising and falling sounds of what Black Star once described as the city's respiration.

Jointly released by local labels Keivarae Entertainment and Jasiri Media, Hello World has 19 tracks that are conditioned by the Emerald City. Or closer yet, the city is the condition of each track. When the music starts, we are back on the streets, dealing ("I'm out in the rain serving customers"), loitering ("That's the norm/The Louis XIII keeping us warm"), eluding cops ("The cops heard I was pushing but couldn't stop shit"), ducking the bullets of our sworn enemies ("Cash rules everything around these niggers/Ass fools, yeah them boys fired up a pound for figures"). Framework's world is determined by the codes, the desires, the woes of a hustler. But it doesn't end there: Framework is first an MC and then a street tough. If you take away the thug from most rappers, you end up with nothing; take away the thug from Framework, and you still have a rapper.

Hello World is to Seattle what Nas's Illmatic was to New York City. In Illmatic, the city spoke through Nas; the same is true with Framework and Hello World. This is our city speaking in a language that we never thought it had, a language that, like Illmatic, is thoroughly urban. In Hello World we see and feel a given moment of time (Seattle, winter of 2005). Many, however, will be offended by or upset with the type of metropolis Framework discourses. It's a Seattle that seems unimaginable—a city where criminals "live and die violently," and streets are so tense that a constant supply of weed is needed to keep the nerves calm. "These inner-city blocks are stressed out/Looking over your shoulder with your Glock and vest out/Smoking marijuana is the remedy," he raps in "Inner City."

"I'm a product of Seattle. This is where I learned everything," says Framework. "The good, the bad, the uglies, the pretties. It's where it all comes from—right here. I can't talk about nothing else. I've lived in other places, but I can't talk about living in those other places 'cause I'm not from those other places. I'm from here. So no matter what the circumstances, no matter what the present situation is, this city is it for me."

Framework's present situation is that of an inmate at King County Regional Justice Center in Kent. He was thrown in the slammer four months ago for parole violation, and hopes to get out of this sad place (with its bad public art, stern prison guards, and depressed visitors) as soon as possible. Thus far, Framework's life has oscillated between the streets of Seattle and America's gigantic prison system. He spent five years (1996–2001) in a number of federal prison facilities for the possession of a firearm, and it was during this stretch of time that he improved his rhymes and delivery.

"While I was in the federal system I did a lot of writing and worked at becoming a better MC," he says into the visitor phone. Framework (who is tallish, handsome, and very friendly—he looks more like a stock broker than a gang banger) is wearing a bright-red prison uniform and sitting on the other side of the unbreakable glass that's between us. Behind him is a large holding area, which he shares with other inmates, who are presently sitting at tables, walking about, talking, waiting for their time of confinement to come to an end. "While in prison," Framework explains, "you can keep up with what's going on in the rap world—changes in style and stuff like that. So I pretty much kept up with the game and I wasn't behind when I got out."

Though prison life is often the substance of his raps, Framework doesn't make hiphop for the sake of salvation. The popular story of Hustle & Flow (a new movie about a pimp who raps for redemption) isn't Framework's story. His main investment is in the art itself, which is why politics plays such a small part in his debut. With Framework you won't find instructions on how to manage your life, how to avoid a life of crime, how to stay out of jail and become a better person. If you want a preacher, go to church; if you want a real MC, listen to Hello World.

There are three reasons why Framework's debut is outstanding. One: It reunites the thug with hiphop. Since Mobb Deep's gothic Hell on Earth (1996), the gun clapper has been everywhere (on cable, on potato-chip packets, on MTV's Spring Break specials) but hiphop. By working with Bean One, a brilliant local producer, Framework was able to reconnect the "backpacker's [ethos]" with the "thug mentality." "Bean One, he got the hiphop. And that's what I was looking for, a hiphop, b-boy sound that's big," he explains with a level of excitement that seems out of place in this sterile justice center. "I've worked with Vitamin D, Jake One, as well as Bean One, and what they all have is a big sound. Not a local little sound, but a sound that's extra large."

Framework also resurrects what the great Tragedy Khadafi once called the Intelligent Hoodlum. Along with the drug dealing and gun blasting in Framework's raps there's an intelligence that's open and even sensitive. On the song "Bad for You," Framework warns a woman he loves not to get involved with him because his life is unstable and he has no immediate plans to stabilize it. "I'm not selfish like that," he says into the phone, "I know some brothers who are selfish and will make a good girl go bad. But like I said in that song, I'm the worst kind to know. I show you that I love you by letting you go on."

Finally, Hello World describes a Seattle that is aggressively urban, but also naturally beautiful. And this is the best part about our city: Its beauty is democratic. It's a beauty that can be enjoyed by the rich working in the glass towers of the Business District and by young brothers working the streets of the Central District. "This is where I'm from," concludes Framework. "It is a lovely city, and I love it to death." ■

For more imformation on Framework and Hello World go to www.listen2frame.com.