It's the lyrics in hiphop, they even the odds.

We gotta—come on baby, come on— come on and keep it alive...

These days, we need somebody like Saigon. In an age when Fat Joe can't seem to hop off DJ Khaled's speedboat, when hiphop's love, money, and inspiration are all in dangerously short supply—shit, when there's actually kids debating Soulja Boy vs. GZA—an outspoken and combustible NYC traditionalist refusing to budge from hiphop's bleeding edge like it's a pissy Bed-Stuy stoop is particularly heartening.

When I first heard Warning Shots, 2004's retail-ready "Best of" collection of Saigon's by then prodigious mixtape output, I was most struck by how gangsta his gangster was. 50 Cent, who just two years prior was in the same spot, was already oiling up for the ladies, LL-style. Someone like Sai, not long out of prison for attempted murder, was in a perfect position to out-thug the big dogs. But instead of doing photo shoots in bullet-proof vests, Saigon gave some infamously ill interviews, denouncing artists like Snoop and Game for glorifying gangbanging.

He spent time bigging up not his clothing line, video game, or signature sneaker, but his nonprofit, called Abandoned Nation, which helps kids with incarcerated parents. He went from songs like the stunning G-as-I-wanna-be NYC neoclassic "Stocking Cap" to shockingly sincere pleas for gang unity like "The Color Purple," or tortured narratives like "Pain in My Life." Harking back to when the most "hardcore" rappers were also often the most "conscious," Saigon may be a bit of a throwback, but he never went out of style.

The saga of Saigon's beyond-the-valley-of-long-awaited debut album, The Greatest Story Never Told, has been a roller-coaster ride. Chiefly produced by superproducer Just Blaze, it was supposed to come out even before Sai scored a supporting role (as himself) on Entourage. It's been pushed back, held up by sample clearance issues, and even thought doomed when Saigon briefly declared himself retired last summer. Not many records that have been on hold for three-plus years have maintained the kind of anticipation Sai is enjoying right now.

Lead single "Come on Baby" stomps like a raggedy pair of construction Timbs on the toes of boutique sneakers, and although the remix with Jay-Z is nice, Saigon's hunger on the OG remains rawer. His recent The Moral of the Story mixtape showed him sharper than ever, and clearly contemptuous of the state of the art he feels so destined to save.

In 2008, what do we do with a rapper as unapologetically NYC, as unapologetically anti-dumbshit as Saigon? We say, THANK YOU.

Conflict of interest alert: Cancer Rising opens for Saigon on Wed Feb 20 at Neumo's, with Dyme Def, 8 pm, $20, all ages.