RaindropHustla

Back in January I put local heads up on this project:

Okay, you might recall me talking a while back about a crew called 96 Pickup—maybe; I can’t really speak to your presence of mind, whoadie. Well, I just got ahold of Gravity, the debut album from two of its principals, Def Dee and Language Arts. You might know LA best from his memorable guest verse on my favorite joint off the Physics’ must-have ‘09 EP, High Society, ”Back Track”: “Before I made ‘em all applaud, head-nod, say ‘ohmigawd.’” Rest assured, he throws zero dirt on his own rep for the duration of Gravity, where his clear ear for classic flows (he’s definitely rapped along to Reasonable Doubt a few times) and sharp rhymes never overstays its welcome, knowing when to press the bars and when to fall back and keep the train on track. Producer Def Dee clearly knows exactly what he’s going for, as well: vinyl-cracklin’ mid-’90s-style NYC boom-bap, owing a lot to the insomniac vibes of The U.N. or of the master Pete Rock’s PeteStrumentals series. “Throwback” it is, but sloppy emulation it’s not—Dee’s focus on MPC-and-turntable grit feels right and far more vintage-sounding than he has any right to. The beats have some of the album’s best moments—there’s a gorgeous, shimmering piano-plink instrumental that sounds like your box lazily eating up your favorite mixtape during Prodigy’s “Keep It Thoro.” You already know if this is something that gets play in your ride—if this kind of sound is you, do the knowledge on these two (hit their MySpace page at /deflanguage) stat. (That means “hella quick” in doctorese.)

Thing was, though, I didn’t know heads weren’t going to be able to get their ears upon this project any time soon. This situation, however, has been remedied and you can now download the entire Gravity LP for free. Lucky!

Dee & LA are trying to get this work out to the people and get some much-deserved shine and I ain’t mad at that. Fact is, Language Arts is one of the strongest MC’s in the 206 and more people should know this. Fans of beats and rhymes in the classic mold, kindly add these two to your Rolodex of dope shit out your district, stat; South End represent!