From the very genesis of this motley twenty-something bastard that backpackers like to call "hip-hop" and cultural studies professors label "rap," there have always existed two predominantly opposed beat-making ideologies. No, it's not an "East coast/West coast" thing (at least not outwardly), but for ages now, there has been a marked difference between the studio-slick, synth-heavy bounce of a Dr. Dre or Timbaland production and the crackling, sample-heavy boom-bap trademarked by producers like DJ Premier, Pete Rock, and Jay Dee-- and in the war being fought for commercial radio supremacy on the forefront of hip-hop's Diaspora, the Timbalands have won by a landslide. If it wasn't for Kanye West's soul fetishism, the future of popular hip-hop would seem to leave little room for beats made with simply a sampler and a drum machine (check Outkast's latest or Freeway's "Flipside"), which leaves little else than nostalgia for hip-hop traditionalists.
Fortunately, nostalgia's sounding alright these days: Some of last year's best hip-hop albums came from out of the vault (Pete Rock's unearthed work with InI and Deda, and Peanut Butter Wolf's classic collaboration on Charizma's doomed debut), and with 48 Months, the latest record from Seven Heads' resident dynamic duo Asheru and Blue Black, it's looking like this year may be no different. 48 Months isn't a reissue per se-- much of the material included here has previously appeared in other forms, from treasured 12-inches to the group's 2001 debut, Soon Come-- but it manages a similar vibe as these two University of Virginia grads' reminisce on their college rhyming days.
Many of these cuts date back to the early one-off 12-inches Seven Heads would cut before they had the money to distribute Asheru and Blue Black full-lengths, but the bulk of consistently stunning material these guys recorded that failed to make the cut for Soon Come is almost inconceivable. The 88 Keys-produced uptempo jazz-hop hoe-down "Jamboree" breathlessly rubs shoulders with more obscure undie-classics like the Djinji Brown-produced underground-manifesto-by-way-of-kettle-drum-workout "The Music" (sample lyric: "Hip-hop will never leave its rightful rulers/ That's why I still make jams for B-boys and oldschoolers/ While y'all be at the jewelers, I'm dropping gems") and the Rhodes-laced "Better". Furthermore, the record's opener, "Mid-Atlantic", flips the chorus of J-Live's classic ode to travel, "A Charmed Life", and drops in the midst of an Asheru production of wavering vibes notes, Rhodes chords, and that ol' Primo boom-bap to head-nodding results.
That said, there's little on 48 Months that was overtly groundbreaking in its day; most of these tracks are burdened by the "conscious" idealism of the doomed, Rakwus-ignited mid-90s underground. And yet, the record's predictability is precisely what makes it so moving; 48 Months only falters when it attempts to appease buyers with "previously unreleased" club remixes like the lame-titled "Soul Dub Version" of "Smiley" and the uninteresting Seven Heads freestyle session with J-Live, Grap Luva and Sondia, "How You Livin'?". These low-points notwithstanding, 48 Months further fuels anticipation for Asheru's upcoming solo album, and serves as a hip-hop time capsule for an era when cats like Common Sense used to rap (not sing) and Mos Def wasn't the Hollywood go-to for a black male love interest and Andre 3000 was just 'Dre and everyone thought The Roots were crazy for playing it all live and Jay-Z only rhymed about "Money, Cash, Hoes" and Eminem was unknown even on the Detroit club circuit and...
