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Years in the making, The Demigodz have finally come together to release a full-length album.  This group consists of six emcees; those familiar with Army of the Pharaohs may recognize Apathy, Celph Titled, Esoteric and Blacastan, plus there’s Ryu from Styles Of Beyond (who collaborated with Mike Shinoda on his Fort Minor project), and Motive.  These guys have been dominating underground hip-hop for years as AOTP or as solo artists, and now they’ve come together to make another great project showcasing an awesome display of competitive hip-hop.  Every member in this group is able to dominate the mic, and any given track on this album can have a different member having the best verse.

There are so many great moments on this album; the brilliant sample of the Rocky theme on the first song (although the lyrics are clearly dated from 2007, the track is just so genius they had to keep it on there), the Biggie sample on “Just Can’t Quit”, all six members spitting over the DJ Premier beat on “Worst Nightmare”, Eternia’s guest verse, the Big Pun tribute on “Dead In The Middle”, Esoteric coming out of nowhere and killing “The Gospel”, Apathy and Eso’s back-and-forth rap on “Tomax & Xamot”, and the whole concept behind “Captain Caveman”.  With so many highlights on one album, there’s no way to hate on it.  If mainstream hip-hop still put talent over marketability like the 1990’s, this would probably be considered a modern-day classic album, with this crew getting the same recognition of Mobb Deep, Wu-Tang, Gang Starr, Blackstar, or Cypress Hill back then.

This is hardcore, competitive emceeing at its finest.  The title of this album comes from the classic Nas album from 1994, but they put a K in front of it because this is all hard beats and sharp rhymes with no mellowing-out.  A lot of the songs on this album sound like the core essence of rap music; just a bunch of guys in a cypher taking turns to spit dope verses over nice beats.  If you like rap music, you can’t go wrong with this pick from 2013.  I’m looking forward to the Army of the Pharaohs album coming next year.

My Joint:

My Grade (based on how well I connected with it, no disrespect if your experience was different): A

Come back to my blog tomorrow to see which album or mixtape came in at #2 on the countdown!