Delaware is America's most active and profound state, no? The answer is no. Oddly, for a state that signed the Declaration of Independence even before reading it, it must have waited to pick all of its official state "things" after everyone else had their turn. Delaware's state bird is the blue hen. And their state marine animal is the horseshoe crab. State soil? Greenwich loam. (Port silt was already taken I guess.) The state beverage? Wait for it...it's milk.
But if Delaware statesmen put up nominations for state emcee, Hezekiah has to be on the ballot. The First State native son has played the backdrop for the likes of Musiq and Bilal, in addition to catalyzing the producers' open forum, the Beat Society. And although I've never met him, I bet he's got one of those neckbeards the kids are clamoring for, as well as a lot of knit hats.
Hezekiah released this album's lead single, "Gypsy Slang", back in 2003, so Hurry Up and Wait is an appropriate title for his proper career jump-off. Drawing heavily from the Philadelphia hip-hop sound creeping across the Delaware River, Hezekiah adheres to a strict diet of hi-hat/snare combinations and chest-rattling bass that cover his missteps as an emcee. ("How you gonna bust with an umbrella up your in butt opening up?") "Right On", for example, pulls straight from the Time-Life hip-hop collection circa 1998 with a propulsive soul clatter that mimics a keyboard courting the bass drum.
But without a watermarked sound, Hezekiah only builds on the backs of others. At this point, the baby Jay Dee comparisons are obvious and tracks like "You", with its bass-pause-clap staccato, would fit nicely somewhere in Slum Vil's Fantastic collection. Of course, Hezekiah also inherited Detroit's juvenile and utterly uncreative approach to female relations. (I think there are Cliffs Notes on romantic subtlety from Zalman King that never made it Hezekiah's home studio.) Demonstration? See "Photograph". "She half nude, exposin' her fallopian tubes." Pretty sexy, eh? After all, nothing says I love you like "Put 'em on the glass/ Lemme take a photograph."
Despite its lightly veiled homages and patent immaturity, Hurry Up and Wait is a solid debut. And I can honestly say it's the best hip-hop album from Delaware in the past decade.
