Fuzzy Meadows: The Month’s Best New Music (Assorted Selections from August) — POST-TRASH

INSPECTAH DECK
“Dragon’s Breath” LP

Let’s get it straight, Inspectah Deck is one of hip-hop’s all time greats. As an MC, there are few that can match his bars verse to verse. He’s embodied the essence of rap music linguistics from the earliest days of the Wu-Tang Clan and he’s been on his grind ever since. We all know the story about the flood that erased what would have been his RZA produced solo album circa 1996 (one of rap’s greatest tragedies), but Deck has always stayed determined, kept his head down, and his consistency over the past three decades is legendary. Dragon’s Breath, Rebel INS’ sixth solo album, often feels more like a lyricist lounge mixtape than it does a proper album, but that’s a result of Deck’s commitment to the underground. There are a lot of features on the record, the songs unfolding with an army of MCs known to really spit, and Deck as the conductor bringing everything together. What it lacks in decades old allegiances, it makes up for in unfiltered bars and hard-headed brilliance. This is a rap album for people who dig into the raps, Deck’s verses setting the tone with punchlines, OG wisdom, and plenty of super fly shit talk. Together with the next generation of poetically inclined MCs (Ransom, Che Noir, Sa-Roc, 7xvethegenius, ANKHLEJOHN), underground vets (Flee Lord, Skyzoo, RJ Payne, Eto), and longtime peers (Raekwon, Cappadonna, Esoteric of Czarface), Deck is the surgeon, operating on these beats with precision and grace.