Some rappers have become notorious for waiting a while between dropping their debut single and coming out with an album, but only one of them has gone a full nineteen years. Percee P appeared on his first single with D-Nique as Top Priority for "Let the Homicides Begin" in 1988; for a bit of context, that's the same year De La Soul dropped their first single, Scarface and Willie D joined what was then still spelled the Ghetto Boys, and Tupac first moved to California. (DJ Shadow, who would later sample a verse from "Homicides" for Endtroducing... track "Napalm Brain/Scatter Brain", was 15.)
Perce continued to show up on a number of 12" singles over the years, spending equal time on either end of the "ft." but still maintaining a relatively low profile, carefully building his back catalogue 16 bars at a time. Like most of his underground peers, his brief tenure on a major (Atlantic put out his classic single "Lung Collapsing Lyrics" in 1992) led nowhere, and eventually he began his own distribution hustle, standing outside NYC's Fat Beats record store hawking homemade copies of his self-compiled anthology Now and Then. (If he's still hanging out there, buy a copy.)
While that collection proved that the man could stay lyrically consistent even as underground rap mutated from D.I.T.C. to Aesop Rock, his actual full-length (uh) "debut" record Perseverance is the first example of what the man can (and can't) do with all-new material over the course of an hour. True to form, he brings his battle-rap show-off tendencies to the forefront, letting his assonant, gymnastic flow-- think Big Daddy Kane's "Raw" with even more velocity, or the relentlessness of Rakim's verses on "Follow the Leader" rendered grimier-- carry most of the weight.
Perce's been generally affiliated with Stones Throw over the last few years, showing up on both Chrome Children compilations and performing sets during the label's 10th anniversary tour, so it's not surprising that Madlib handles the production duties for a record this potentially momentous. And he keeps things afloat by deploying just about every trick in his book-- askew soundtrack-library fusion ("Who With Me?"), hazy Southern-fried funk ("Legendary Lyricist"), vodka-buzz soul jazz ("Ghetto Rhyme Stories"), even a bit of stoner metal ("The Dirt and the Filth"). He even hits Shadow with a bit of back-atcha for the "Let the Homicides Begin" sample: the break in "BX (Interlude)" comes from the same source that gave "Mutual Slump" its lead-heavy tom-toms. It's one of his most varied production jobs, unpredictable without being uncharacteristic, and his beats reach the perfect level of busy amplification to accompany Percee's flow.
That said, Perseverance is largely a one-note deal on the verbal end of things: Percee P's lyrical prowess tends to be in the service of, well, the prowess itself. Cuts like "Legendary Lyricist" and "Throwback Rap Attack" are, to put it in jazz terms, all solo and no riff-- leaning on a specific vocal or linguistic sound and taking it in every direction he simultaneously can while still speaking English; if the gist of things basically boils down to "I can rock mics and/or crowds," at least Perce picks some uniquely circular ways of expressing it. And even when he's rattling off Möbius-strip syllables and stringing together verses that are too layered and elaborate to even scan as contiguous ideas, much less readily-transcribable quotes, there's something about his technique-- mush-mouthed as it can occasionally get-- that pins you to the back of your chair and makes the inevitable what-the-hell'd-he-say rewinds worthwhile. It's fun to hear him rhyme, even if there's not much insight outside his own sphere of fuck-shit-up braggadocio.
It's a tendency that's made even starker by the small handful of tracks where he serves as a more straightforward storyteller, like the name-dropping gratitude of career retrospective "The Man to Praise", the romantic tribute "The Lady Behind Me", or the self-explanatory "Ghetto Rhyme Stories". None of them has all the flash or technique of his mic-destruction cuts, but they sound a lot more human in comparison-- as do the wide range of guest MCs, including a fiery turn from Organized Konfusion vet Prince Po ("Last of the Greats"), Jedi Mind Tricks' Vinnie Paz going guttural ("Watch Your Step"), and a characteristic bout of impenetrable smartassery from Aesop Rock ("The Dirt and Filth"). While Percee can easily carry a cut further on his own than his history of guest spots and collaborative efforts might have indicated, it's a dosage best taken one track at a time, but with fifteen solid-to-great non-skit cuts on the record, spacing them out should extend Perseverance's shelf life a bit-- and tide over hardcore fans until his sophomore album. It's dropping soon, right?
