8. Freestyle FellowshipInnercity Griots

That’s another one that changed everything for me. I became obsessed with that Project Blowed LA underground scene. This is the big album from that scene, but it’s also so out-there. This is around the same time that A Tribe Called Quest is happening in New York, and the critics called that whole scene a fusion of jazz and hip hop. But, actually, that’s what Freestyle Fellowship were doing – improvising live with jazz players, doing crazy rhythmic things and stuff that feels like scatting. This album is very LA, dark and moody and scary and also really jazzy, with amazing rapping. I don’t think there’s another rap album quite like it, and, along with everything they went on to do – Haiku D’Etat [a supergroup featuring Freestyle Fellowship members and kindred rapper Abstract Rude] and all of the Project Blowed compilations – is stuff I studied really heavily when I was starting to rap at 13 or 14. And I was kind of around them, but because I didn’t live in LA, they were like mythical creatures, like total rap gods to me. Myka 9 is like goddamn Cab Calloway, but with raps. I could have chosen a lot of their records, but this was as close to a mainstream success as they got, and is still very weird, and amazing.