PERCEE P - Perseverance

Niggaz With Attitude, aka NWA, one of the first crews to churn out hardcore rap and the alleged founders of gangsta rap, must have taught Percee P a great deal. Percee, before this album, was known as the best unsigned rapper out there, and bluntly put, whoever said that was probably right. There are certainly plenty of MCs out there, but they'll need a lot of practice to go toe to toe with the author of one of the most interesting debuts not just of 2007, but of the last few years.

No, please, not avant hip-hop. We're sick and tired of sulky little gentlemen, two beardless button-pushers who can't even muster half a beat, enough already. Reactionary or not, old school or ol' skool, cheesy and greasy, who cares — if we've almost managed to get rid of post-rock and Trentemoller, we can also try to restore the black glory of a genre trampled on by the supposed intelligence of some music hack. Yo.

“Perseverance” throws open doors and windows onto a hugely gifted rapper, both in wordplay and in rhythm, who draws on hip-hop's great names, starting from the New York crews captured in “Big Apple Rappin'”, through the joyfulness of Run DMC with Jam Master Jay's dry beats, all the way to the aforementioned NWA, Snoop and that crowd of rappers who, in part, roughed up the scene during the '90s. Percee has studied all these lessons at length, but he didn't stop at learning them: he decided that if everyone gets a shot, he'd play his by seeking out a personal method, different from everyone else's.

Let's say, though, that alongside his own homegrown talent, there's also a “heavyweight” friend who helped our man pull off an album like “Perseverance”: Madlib. Partly setting aside his own restless energy, he pitched in to help Stones Throw's new protégé, even stepping in as co-star on “Legendary Lyricist”, perhaps one of the album's finest moments.

The overall funk drive combined with Percee's fury are the two key ingredients of this album, which confirms the rumors that were circulating before its release: there's skill and knowledge here alongside sheer inspiration. If I had to pinpoint the real flaw of an album like this, I'd point to its length, perhaps excessive. “Perseverance” is, in fact, a relentless monolith of words and beats, old-school style indeed, and it's up to each listener's sensibility to decide whether that's too much or not enough. What's certain is that we're dealing with a champion of on-the-fly rhyming on a par with El-P or Aesop Rock, two other names who know a thing or two about hot material.

Percee P was the best unsigned rapper around, now he's shown his cards and it turns out he's holding a great hand. Place your bets.

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03/12/2007