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Boston raps
Local noise from 7L & Esoteric, Virtuoso, Insight, and Mr. Lif

BY MICHAEL ENDELMAN

The dense crowd at Karma are bobbing their heads to a potent mix of classic hip-hop — Pete Rock & C.L. Smooth, Special Ed, and Boogie Down Productions are pumping out of the club’s ample sound system. It’s an appropriately retro warm-up to a blistering set by 7L & Esoteric, a local hip-hop duo who proudly recall the simmering funk grooves, b-boy braggadocio, and sharp punch lines of the days when, as Esoteric says, " It was cool to call hip-hop rap. "

In 1996, DJ 7L & MC Esoteric released their first single (under the name God Complex) for the then new local label Brick. At the time, they were at the forefront of the local and national hip-hop revolution, part of a generation of rap artists who decided to skip over the major-label bureaucracy and just do it themselves. Five years later, the pair are still going strong: 7L & Esoteric have become one of the Hub’s most reliable and potent hip-hop duos. And last month they finally released their debut album, The Soul Purpose (Direct/Landspeed).

Blame the long delay on typical indie-label (dis)organization and the duo’s restless work ethic: they turned out so much material that the album pushes past the 65-minute mark. But though the long wait has been frustrating for the pair, it seems to have made their fan base that much more rabid: the first single, " Call Me E.S., " peaked at #3 on Billboard’s Hot Rap Singles Chart, an amazing feat for a independent hip-hop act from Boston, which national observers have long written off as a rap wasteland.

The subsequent full-length is a mix of tracks new and old. Although some of the material dates back to 1998, most of it sounds as if it could’ve been recorded in 1988. Which is exactly the point. " We’re inspired by the music crafted during the Golden Age of hip-hop, about ’86 through ’89, " says Esoteric over his cell phone from New York, where he’s on a promotional trip. " You know, raw beats, gritty sounds, a lot of DJ cuts, clever rhymes, funny punch lines. My rhyme style is inspired by the egotistical battle stance of MCs like Lord Finesse and Big Daddy Kane, basically, 'My shit is better than yours.'  "

Esoteric delivers plenty of clever punch lines and deft taunts on The Soul Purpose. In fact, the Beverly-bred MC comes off like a walking dictionary of wack MC disses and hip-hop bluster. " Your rap tomes are like arm bones — they’re humorous, " he says on " Terror to Your Ear. " Or check these lines from " Mic Mastery " : " I take command/Crushing all my enemies/Breakin’ their hands/A giant avalanche, quaking your fans/I’m a mic dealer/I bring doom, rippin’ buffoons/Mouth expands like wombs in delivering rooms. "

The thick, viscous beats — provided by 7L, Vinyl Reanimators, DJ Spinna, and others — are stocked with dusty horn samples, ominous string stabs, and neck-snapping drum hits. It’s a head-nodding combination that sounds like EPMD reincarnated as two white boys from Boston. Yet no matter how bloody or boastful Esoteric gets on the mike, he emphasizes that the hard-knock attitude doesn’t carry over to real life. " I’ve always been drawn to MCs who just talk about how dope they are. So I’m kinda egotistical on the mike. But in person, we’re both really down to earth. "

WHEN VIRTUOSO first came to attention, on Brick’s 1997 scene overview The Rebel Alliance LP, the Cambridge-bred MC was still a high-school student. A hip-hop prodigy of sorts, he wowed listeners with his dense wordplay and incredible breath control on the cut " Omnipotence. " Now 21, he can’t coast on youthful appeal any more. But the bespectacled MC proves he’s more than just a hip-hop Macaulay Culkin on his impressive debut album, World War One: The Voice of Reason (Omnipotent).

" It was cool and exciting to have that hype when I was only 18, " he explains over the phone from New York, where he’s doing promotion for his new disc. " But there was pressure, too. It was hard, but I think my stuff has matured into something better. "

Although Virtuoso’s early cuts were technically impressive, the new CD proves he’s more than just a blistering rhyme-spitting machine. There are still plenty of straight-up battle tracks, like the amazing " All We Know, " a flamenco-inflected collaboration with West Coast favorites Del the Funky Homosapien and Casual. And on the ominous " Beatdown, " he shows he can still spit out tongue-twisting couplets with the best of them. But he tempers the frenetic flow with anti-violence narratives ( " Slicin’ Your Wrists " ), idealistic messages ( " One " ), and even a couple dance-friendly party tracks with R&B vocal hooks. It’s these last cuts that got Boston’s hip-hop scene — where a purist, indier-than-thou mentality reigns — murmuring with rumors of Virtuoso selling out, turning soft, or, even worse, going jiggy.

" Dudes can think whatever they want, " he fires back. " My main thing is dropping knowledge, but I also like party jams, stuff for people to kick back to. I even like some stuff that some people would call jiggy. I just want to have some variety and reach out to all types of fans. " He explains that the über-complex style he perfected on cuts like " Incinerator " and " Orion’s Belt " — loaded with bizarre medical/scientific terminology and lots of multisyllabic non-sequiturs — was becoming a dead end. " It just got boring. I had to keep looking for crazier and crazier words until it got to point where people didn’t know what I was talking about. "

So Virtuoso has stepped back, arriving at a style that combines cryptic Wu-inspired slangology with narratives, sharp punch lines, and some positive messages to top it off. " I want to reach women and kids, too. Not just battle tracks where I say, ‘I’ll kill you and smash you.’ I want to prove that I’m more than just superhuman skills, I want to make something people can grasp. "

MANY LOCAL HIP-HOP FOLLOWERS are familiar with the name Insight, though fewer know what the Dorchester-based triple threat (he’s a producer, DJ, and MC) actually looks like. " I’m definitely a hermit, " he acknowledges. " Sometimes I’m so outta my element if I’m not at home. I’m definitely not out at the clubs all the time, I’m not that type of person. I’d usually rather be at home working on a track. "

It’s all this time spent behind closed doors that explains how the soft-spoken, somewhat shy musician has exploded onto the Boston rap scene over the past couple years, producing cuts for Mr. Lif, Virtuoso, and L da Headtoucha as well as releasing a pair of fine singles on Brick. Earlier this summer, Insight released his first full-length, Insight Presents . . . (Brick), a compilation of his " sound theories of frequency splicing. " Designed as a breakbeat record for producers and wax jockeys, Insight Presents . . . is far more listenable than most DJ tools. With a handful of rhymes from Insight and his friends, goofy skits (Mr. Lif calls Insight from Yugoslavia to demand a new beat), and plenty of his tweaked-out instrumentals, the album comes off as short-attention-span theater for bugged-out hip-hop heads.

Although the concept is engaging, it’s the beats that make this CD stand out. Injected with a heavy dose of gritty, oppressive paranoia, and, yes, swing-era jazziness, Insights’ beats are a mess of contradictory sounds. " I like to do extremes, " he explains. " I might throw something really nice and almost corny-sounding, but then I counter it with real grimy and noisy sounds. "

It’s a sonic style that’s earning him a reputation beyond the Hub. Besides working on an upcoming full-length collaboration with Mr. Lif, Insight has produced and engineered for New York artists like Thirstin Howl III and the legendary KRS-One over the past year. Still, the soft-spoken artist has no dreams of broader mainstream success. " My music is weird, " he laughs. " I put on my music and most hip-hop heads go, ‘I don’t like that.’ Which is fine with me, I wanna make music that most people don’t like. "

LIVE ALBUMS IN HIP-HOP are about as common as World Series rings in the Hub. Nevertheless, Boston’s own Mr. Lif packed the Middle East downstairs back on July 26 for a live recording that, according to his management team, Metro Concepts, could be used for some sort of live-concert release over the next year. Exactly what form that release will take — official label CD, limited-edition disc, Japanese import — isn’t certain yet.

No matter how the material manifests itself, Mr. Lif proved once again that he’s one of the best hip-hop performers in the country. Call it home-town hubris, but I think that Lif owns one of the best stage shows in the entire genre. He’s got it all — an embracing stage presence, a unique rhythmic sensibility, humorous stage patter, and, most of all, crisp enunciation that could amaze the stuffiest high-school English teacher. Yeah, it might sound like a backhanded compliment, but Mr. Lif’s diction makes most MCs sound as if they had marbles in their cheeks. Keep it coming loud and clear, Lif — we’ll be listening.

Issue Date: August 9 - 16, 2001