Life in a danger zone/You don't know if it's a home invasion/or the cops trying to raid your home. âSick Jacken, "Unorthodox Blocks"
Repping the infamously gang-infested Pico-Union district of L.A., Sick Jacken has been putting down his brand of I-got-a-right-to-be-paranoid urban war chant since he first emerged with his slept-on crew Psycho Realm back in 1997. Shortly before their self-titled debut dropped on Sony, Jacken's brother and partner in PR, Duke, was paralyzed from the neck down following a shooting while trying to break up a fight, putting the group on hold. Jacken has since maintained his and his crew's name through releases on the Realm's label, Sick Symphonies, and has amassed a cultish legion of fans, who frequent the website that his brother now manages (www.psychorealmonline.com). A king of L.A.'s underground, Jacken still hardly registers a blip on the radar of most indie-hop fansâbut hopefully his brand-new record with Cypress Hill's DJ Muggs, Legend of the Mask & the Assassin, will do something to change all that. Released on Latino Universal (with some songs wholly en espaĂąol), Legend is an utterly uncompromising slab of L.A. street-terrorist holy-war hiphopâand one of the best albums to drop this year. Good hiphop, in my opinion, should make you make that faceâyou know the oneâand make you wanna lose your mind in the least socially acceptable form available. Now go listen to "Unorthodox Blocks" and tell me it doesn't make you want to dump on the first blue-and-white that crosses your path. Muggs's funereal, mud-caked stomp-outs and Jacken's block-tested Angeleno nihilism are a marriage made in the coldest pits of hell. It's just that good.
What's also goodâamong other thingsâis that not long ago I scored a mixtape from Everett's own Ripynt (pronounced "repent," not "rippin' it," fool) of MyndState Entertainment, mixed by DJ Money D, called Start from Scratch. I momentarily forgot my repertoire of EVT jokes as my head immediately nodded to "Soul Clap," a slick, jazzy, yet amped original cutâand noted Ripynt's testimonial MCing. There are some features on the mix (from Mateo Mblem, Speedy Gonzalez, George Zelaya, Grynch, Jay Barz, Logics, Brotha Brown, 1st Black Prez, and Anomilie) that range from yeah! to ehhh, but all do well at contrasting Rip's own vocals. Flow-wise he could benefit from sliding more into the pocket, as a few too many syllables sometimes clog his delivery, and nothing on the rest of the tape quite approaches the cocky swing of "Soul Clap." But the hunger and passion are obvious; I expect good things from dude in the future, and recommend you hit Rip at his MySpace page to trade a copy of Start for your hard-earned scratch. Get it? 
