E-Mail This Article to a Friend Rise of the rebels (continued)

Esoteric agrees: "It helped that we are all in the same squad with Jedi Mind Tricks, we have the same vibe of music, you know, real hip-hop. Just to be clear, we have no beef with Brick, but we were let down by Landspeed from the start."

With the business side of things sorted out, the duo set out to make DC2: Bars of Death, which is a more mature collection that relies less on their trademark battle rhymes, though Esoteric is still more than willing to call out wack MCs. Indeed, they pretty much had to after being challenged by a collective of underground NYC rap heavyweights on the Internet. But they held their own, and they concluded the challenge the old-fashioned way: with old-school battle rhymes.

Esoteric details the rivalry that led up to DC2. "As sad as it sounds, it started on [New York rapper] Cage’s message board. People said we were dope, and he responded by posting, ‘Esoteric sucks.’ I wasn’t even going to acknowledge that shit, but it kept coming. We were playing this High Times show in New York that Cage was on. And he’s on-line talking about how he’s going to fuck me up if I come to New York, and so was [Cage’s label mate] Copyright. People were saying that we weren’t even going to show up. But we went, we did our set, and we called them out on stage: ‘I’m here if anyone wants to battle, I’ll be here all night.’ I was trying to settle it lyrically. I wasn’t looking for a fist fight."

"Some of the things he was saying on-line went from ‘Eso has no rhymes’ to ‘I’m going to punch him in the face,’ " 7L adds.

"Ignorant shit," Esoteric continues. "So we waited for them to come out. Copyright left, gone, dipped out of the club. Cage came out and said, ‘I don’t wanna battle.’ After that, Cage and Copyright recorded shit about me. And out of the blue, El P did a record about me too. I have no idea why he would bother to put his two cents into it. He did it on Aesop Rock’s record — he said very specific things. And I would never have known because I am not a fan of Aesop Rock — that stuff isn’t even hip-hop to me. So we recorded ‘Mercy Killing’ and I shit on his whole crew. In a year and a half, we made three songs answering their 13."

The battle had the underground community waiting for the group’s third album, waiting to see whether a Boston rapper who’d embarrassed five NYC MCs could hold his own on a full-length. So far, reaction to the new CD has been positive, and the buzz created by the Boston/NYC rivalry has only raised the profile of 7L & Esoteric, helping them to get their foot in the door on commercial radio, including alternative-rock stations like WFNX.

The most curious aspect of DC2 is a collaboration with Boston’s most visible Black Panther, Uno the Prophet. Also known as Nat Turner Devil Burner, Uno has created a fair amount of controversy with song titles like "Kill Whitey." But 7L & Esoteric have forged an interesting bond with Uno that manifests itself in one of the album’s heaviest tracks, "Touchy Subject," which addresses the use of the "N" word and the validity of white rappers like 7L & Esoteric. It’s a surprising move for the duo, who are not known for making music with political messages. "It’s humorous," 7L responds. "There are many quasi-political rappers out there, but none of them really wants to take serious issues on. Back in the day, Paris and KRS-One were really outspoken. They were targeting specific people, specific issues. But after ’92, conscious rap became hippy bullshit. People wanna be safe and say, ‘Fuck Bush.’ " But that’s too easy."

The track is sure to raise eyebrows, but it does more than just address racial issues. By collaborating with Uno and Boston legend K.T., 7L & Esoteric have blurred the schism between Boston’s two hip-hop scenes: the largely white college kids and the native Boston street-bred rappers. The latter rarely play rock clubs like the Middle East, which is one of 7L & Esoteric’s regular venues.

Now that they’ve made an album that’s as hard to pigeonhole as it is to ignore, 7L & Esoteric are aiming to put together the right team to take them to the next level. Esoteric recalls something 7L told him before he laid down the disc’s vocal tracks. "We were talking about the record and what it would take for us to be happy with it, and 7L said, ‘You just gotta rap like the world is ending.’ "

7L & Esoteric perform next Friday, August 20, at the Paradise Rock Club, 967 Commonwealth Avenue in Boston; call (617) 562-8800.