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Main
Flow
"Hip Hop Worth Dying
For" (feat. Talib Kweli)
"You Got 2" (feat. Black Thought; prod. DJ Vinroc)
Wanna Battle Records
www.wannabattle.com
"Loving The Game" (feat. Planet Asia)
Brick Records
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Main Flow hails from Cincinnati, Ohio,
not exactly known as a bastion of hip-hop innovation. But then
again, real hip hop doesn’t need a geographic feeding pool
in order to spit mad lyrical magic. Main Flow immediately strikes
the ear as a down-to-earth emcee firmly planted into the old school
tradition of spare beats and a wilding flow. Main Flow is no stranger
to the greats of the underground having already amassed stellar
collaborations with people like Hi-Tek, Mos Def, Planet Asia,
and Black Thought.
“Is
Hip Hop Worth Dying For?” is one of Main Flow’s most
flawlessly detonated tracks, a blipped-out, kick drum slam with
Talib Kweli weaving and Main Flow ducking. The cat’s cradling
of their rhymes highlights their similar styles, approaches and
ability to spin lyrical rhythms both deft and lumbering. “Championship”
swings deep on a sitar-flecked bass thump and Main Flow riffing
on his ego with unimpressed certainty. It’s not joyless,
just a matter-of-fact accounting of his own skills and peerlessness.
Killah Priest joins in with a lengthy smackdown of the competition,
dropping classic diss lines like “fuck the bling bling/
even if your ass was half and half/you still wouldn’t get
the cream.”
Main
Flow has the cadence of a good street fighter, jabbing, dodging
and pounding out verse that’s quick, surprising and powerfully
delivered. “Superstar Slang” is a funny concept track
building every verse from the names of celebrities with a steady
stream of gems: “You must be Nicole Kid,man” or “When
Niggas act Sissy Spacek”. Occasionally, Main Flow goes off
the rails into territory that is not only cliché, but moronic.
On “We Want Whirl Tour,” he rattles through a chorus
about wanting guns, bullets, and hot celebrities. This is the
sort of ungifted bullshit that pop rappers drool out in lieu of
having anything real to say and it’s really just a throwaway
in light of everyone else he’s done.
At
times the production can be a bit thin. Not often, but on some
of the tracks the vocals are buried and the background is a bit
tinny. But the substance is always there. Not to mention, Main
Flow is obviously harkening back to the era of the unadorned emcee,
people like KRS-One, Run DMC, and Slick Rick, people for whom
hip hop was about the acrobatic word play and simple beats designed
to strike a match under your ass.
A
full length called Hip Hopulation is set to drop shortly,
sure to leave underground reeling under its massive imprint. In
the meantime, you should scarf up what you can while you can and
be ahead of the curve in recognizing a fresh up-and-comer with
a lot on his mind and the skills to back it up.
24-Jun-2003
10:00 PM
If you
liked Main Flow...
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