In the quest for independent success, gaining your 20,000 sales is attributed to a solid live show and an accessible persona. For an artist like Murs, the underground rap landscape is slightly more difficult to traverse. With a rhyme style that merges both early 90s West Coast tangents (his work invokes both Tupac and Souls of Mischief), Murs seems to get lost in the fold, especially while trying to find his musical identity with progressive rap imprint Definitive Jux. But by taking up a harder edge and striking a deal with one of the hottest producers to come out of the underground in 9th Wonder, Murs may have finally found his formula to success with the unfortunately titled Murs 3:16 - The 9th Edition.
No longer rapping about failed kickflips or world domination, Murs has decided to take to a barebones clinic that could easily find as much favor with a Rocafella fan as with the typical Def Jukie. The topical range screams accessibility in favor of experimentation, with cuts about street violence, the negatives of hip-hop culture ("That throwback jersey is a dress/ I remember diamonds used to be a girl's best friend") and various romantic entanglements. But the variety comes directly out of Murs' personality.
He's another emcee in the currently profitable "everyman" rapping profile, but with a weird sense of self-deprecating humor and a strange obligation to street credibility. Here's the case of an emcee who claims on one song to be "more Coldplay than I am Ice T" in his treatment of ladies, while another song amounts to his take on Jay-Z's "Girls, Girls, Girls". Murs himself says it best: "I'm tryin' to walk that thin line between intelligence and ignorance/ Have a little fun while making music of significance." And as is the case with most contradictory emcees, it works admirably.
"Walk Like a Man" is the longest, most involved cut on the record, focusing on the played-out issue of gun drama. The song works specifically due to the variety inherent in the song by 9th's decision on a different beat to match the different mood of each verse. The first verse is Murs questioning his own need for a pistol over blaxploitation stomp ("I never did use it/ What's the point of holding heat if you're never gonna use it, stupid?"); the second verse is drifting angelic voices to frame the death of Murs' friend; the final verse is a barrage of church choir singers and a hydraulic bassline to work with the funeral and the murder of the killer, with the closing chorus looping to the issue of the first verse ("Now I'm haunted with remorse and I wish I hadn't done it"). A song that stands out in its creation of classic gangster moral-telling.
9th Wonder has improved drastically from the days he shopped his Fruity Loops-produced beats on his Soundclick site, with a singular tone that shows more complexity than the work he did on Little Brother's debut and a maturing style that instantly harkens back to the glory days of DJ Premier. "Bad Man!" is simultaneously a backdrop with a shockingly original take on the obligatory dub reggae beat and a call-and-response chorus that actually works, making it an major standout. "The Pain" is midtempo, chopped soul that tips its hat to the RZA, and "H-U-S-T-L-E" is composed of addictive, time-phased vocals shifted into a jagged funk. 9th Wonder not only shows promise here, but fixes up the one constant issue of Murs' career: inconsistent production.
It isn't all prosperous for Murs' strongest all-around album. First off, it's too short in today's world of music, where Illmatic length is only acceptable if your album is Illmatic. Secondly, his scenes of graphic sex (including sex with a raver who puts a "glow stick in her pussy") and violence sound forced in context with his older, less visceral music. Still, Murs has found the positive side of what I call Aceyalone Syndrome. This time, when the rapper started making music specifically for his friends, it turned out for the best. In what could stand to be a strong year for independent hip-hop, Murs could easily sneak into a few lists with his 9th Edition.
