Stakes Is High

Better yet is the accessible cut by Oakland undergrounders Living Legends/Mystik Journeymen. Frank and deliberate in its execution of beats and rhymes, steadfast in personal integrity and creative resolve, Living Legend's "Nowyouno" feels like a catchall comeuppance for every MC who's tried to clinch a record deal without paying dues. The hypnotic organ loop and James Brown-inspired backbeat give "Nowyouno" an undeniable all-absorbing groove. Then, just when you think you've heard near-perfection, in saunter the track's resident lyricists -- Eligh, Aesop, Grouch, Murs, PSC, and BFAP -- shoulder to shoulder like the gunslingers in The Wild Bunch: "You say that on the album, you better live it/ Or give that shit a rest/ Because I'm tired of you muthafuckas not being put to the test." Here -- steeped in individual creativity -- hip hop is a hustle like any other: Live your rhymes, or shut the fuck up. The sentiment echoes Mac Shawn's words for Notorious B.I.G. on the Million Dollar Dream comp: Play in the hip-hop game, but don't take it lightly. You do that, and you're in literal or the creative equivalent of mortal danger.

Beats & Lyrics and Million Dollar Dream manage uniqueness and distinction in their quest to react and respond to a record industry driven by profit and dedicated to exploiting the genre rather than facilitating its growth. Together the two signal, locally at least, a return to the essence of hip hop as a music and a culture. It doesn't matter what facet of the Bay Area scene the true hip-hop fans ally themselves with; they're all looking for the same thing in the artists they follow and support: true dedication to the rap hustle as a means of expression in an alienating world of pop that's moving at the speed of oblivion.