#5...NEW SCHOOL ALERT!! Aesop Rock-"Labor Days" (2001)

While some of you may live under the delusion that I stopped listening to Hip Hop for the better part of the 2000's, well, nothing could be further from the truth. While I did stray around the turn of the century and found another love in Punk Rock, I listened to hip hop all the way through and still kept my head in the game enough to know who was making great records even though there were a slew of cats who weren't.

Post '99/2000 were not good times for Hip Hop. I saw it as the beginning of the end. Labels like Master P's No Limit, as well as Cash Money Records turned Hip Hop into more of a business and less of an art form. While there was still good music to be made, these were truly dark days-I found myself clutching my De La, Nas, and Biggie records until my hands bled. I wasn't ready for what the state of the music would become and part of me knew it wouldn't ever be the same.


Ok, Ok, I'll get off of my soap box for now. If it had not been for Hip Hop totally turning itself inside out during this time, we would've never seen an underground revival. The 90's brought the music into your living room; the decline of the early 2000's got people off the couch. It was an important time; we risked total devastation. There were a few who saw past the trivial elements that encompassed what hip hop had become and still had love for what it used to be. Thus spawned an unmistakable underground. Several great MC's/Artists would emerge: Atmosphere, Sage Francis, Talib Kweli/DJ Hi-Tek, Dead Prez, Dialated Peoples...the list goes on and on. Hell, even Eminem could've at one time have been considered underground.

One of the most Gleaming diamonds in the rough was Ian Bavitz, AKA Aesop Rock. Not only could he rhyme. but he proved himself to be a mammoth talent behind the boards. He would self produce much of his early work; His first effort Float along with Labor would find him splitting production duties (not always evenly) with indie colleague Blockhead. Labor Days conceptually wrought out the rag of the working class in a way that precursors never did. AR rips through his carefully crafted beats like a quirky, funky Bruce Springsteen in a telemarketer's uniform trying to find art in the monotony of a banal cubicle existence. Songs like "9-5er's Anthem" and "Bent Life" make us all feel like we're not the only ones who've had crappy jobs that wear us down and drive us to drink. Labor also made me feel like I could conquer the world through art instead of commerce. After the great artform we know and love began to decimate, I think we all needed feel like this again.

-Marv.