E-Mail This Article to a Friend Rise of the rebels 7L & Esoteric break out on DC2: Bars of Death BY STEVE PEREZ

For the past decade, George Andrinopoulos and Seamus Ryan have been releasing independent vinyl singles and CDs and touring the world from their home base, the Boston area. Never heard of Andrinopoulos and Ryan? How about 7L & Esoteric? Following in the footsteps of nationally recognized rapper Mr. Lif, Andrinopoulos and Ryan have been instrumental in putting Boston’s underground hip-hop scene on the map as 7L & Esoteric. Working the traditional DJ/MC terrain, they bring together raw beats, lightning scratches, and keen battle rhymes delivered in an accent that is unmistakably Boston. (They’ll be appearing next Friday, August 20, at the Paradise.)

The duo stepped into the spotlight during the infant stages of an indie hip-hop underground revolution that re-embraced the old-school values of beats, rhymes, and vinyl. Forging an alliance with the upstart Brick label, they unleashed "Be Alert," a track with a ferocious beat built by a sample from the Transformers cartoon and lyrics that reflected Esoteric’s massive vocabulary and complicated flow. "Be Alert" helped spearhead what became known as "Science Rap," an indie hip-hop subgenre embraced by Jedi Mind Tricks and El P’s erstwhile Company Flow. 7L never liked that categorization: "Our first record, ‘Protocol,’ was a straight-up battle rap. And so was ‘Touch the Mic.’ But ‘Be Alert’ was called science rap because of that Transformers sample. And since that was the hit, we got put into that category."

Science rap or not, 7L & Esoteric were riding a wave of a nationwide upsurge in underground hip-hop. Suddenly, turntables were outselling guitars at Daddy’s Junky Music, and college kids all over Boston were laying down raps that sounded suspiciously like Esoteric. Andrinopoulos and Ryan toured Europe in ’97 and came home to fans hungry for an overdue 7L & Esoteric album. That’s when the trouble started.

The duo signed with Direct, which had national distribution through the now bankrupt Landspeed, and released the Speaking Real Words EP as a holdover while they put the finishing touches on a full-length to be called The Soul Purpose. Frustration shows on 7L’s face when he recalls, "That’s when the headaches ensued. They promised us things we weren’t getting. They became more interested in Landspeed because that was making them money. Our product suffered. We were told we were pushing the album back because we were waiting for beats from Pete Rock and DJ Premiere. We thought that was dope, so we were willing to wait. We waited a long time. Then all of a sudden, we were handed a release date and we still had nothing from Premiere or Pete Rock. We had to hurry up and finish the album."

Esoteric laughs about it now, but it wasn’t funny at the time. 7L is less diplomatic. "It could have been a strong EP. I mean, there are enough songs on that album that we are proud of to make a good EP. But there are songs that we are disgusted by. Well, maybe not disgusted, but not 100 percent proud of. They’re not even mixed properly."

Although The Soul Purpose was well received, winning Best Hip-Hop Album at the 2001 Boston Music Awards, the experience left the duo wary of the business side of music. Undeterred, and determined to atone for what they felt was a subpar release, 7L & Esoteric signed with Brick and set to work on what would be their second full-length, the more fully realized Dangerous Connection.

"We’re out to vindicate ourselves," says Esoteric, "to do it right. We’re happy about that. But we were still dealing with the same distributor, and I got a taste of how things really are in the industry when a two-way text message came in on Landspeed’s pager and it was a NYC artist asking for 10 custom-made Avirex jackets. The Landspeed guy was like, ‘Okay, we’ll take care of that.’ That’s when it became really clear where we were on the totem pole. We both felt like, ‘We’re done with this fuckin’ scenario.’ "

Even though the duo have a deep friendship with Brick, Esoteric says they needed a change. "The label was more together, but it was the same distributor, and we were going to be dealing with the same money issues. So we decided to break free."

7L & Esoteric made the jump to the new independent Babygrande, which seems to have picked up where labels like Rawkus once ruled. The imprint is operated by Chuck Wilson, who’s famous for having overseen the Training Day soundtrack when he was part of Priority’s A&R department. Babygrande has made an auspicious debut with albums from Jedi Mind Tricks and Canibus. And things just feel right for the Boston duo. "Babygrande has us in a lot more stores," says 7L. "They made us a priority where Landspeed had a lot of people ahead of us. They’re in NYC, they have more exposure, more people working the phones, we have an ad running on MTV2, a bigger publicity and marketing staff. It’s all better."