"Speaking Real Words" will be a headphone favorite, and it should be a dancefloor favorite too. This beat is rocking, bouncing, makes your head nod, just as if Tyra Banks had asked you if she should give you a blow job. Or to put it in hip hop vocab: "this is the bomdigi". Esoteric trades rhymes with the Wu's own Inspectah Deck, and the latter goes "gone with the breeze, everything's peace at ease / now I'm laid back, counting stacks, twisting the trees / y rap's scorching - way beyond third degrees / enemies get blown like autumn leaves" while Es goes "to say the least, I'm slaying beasts with the right plan / I'll take your hype man and beat him with the mic stand / you're like, 'damn! I better get a resource' / I'll overpower three-fourths of your police force". This is a sure shot banger.

And while things remain dope, with a scratched Big L chorus, "Bound To Slay" suffers from the undesirable position to follow up a track like the previous. However, this 7L and Vinyl Reanimators produced cut does not allow us to cool off. And "Def Rhymes", as heard on the 12" by the same name, again has us nod like a maniac, or like a Jew at The Wailing Wall. And if this simile wasn't political correct, then I am sorry and apologize in all form and possibility right here and now. But damn, this track rocks.

Aight, so let's check out "Essays On Esoterrorism", an almost tamed down effort, that has 7L bragging and boasting, as he does on the other tracks. And then we progress to "Headswell" featuring his Rebel Alliance compadre Virtuoso. This track was the b-side to the previously mentioned 12". Continue to "Learn From The Druid", the second b-side cut of still the same 12". And finally there's the track "Be Alert" featuring Beyonder and Virtuoso, one of the few underground tracks, that can actually claim to have been bootlegged to vinyl extend. Originally released on the Rebel Alliance album on Brick Records, this Transformer effect sampling beat by Beyonder, made this a sought after 12", and has now been reissued, so buy the genuine one, suckers.

If you have read this, you know that EPs are a rare coming, but hold a special charm (haha). And with a newly crowned 'selected few' track on the platter, this EP succeeds from the first snare to the last syllable, not only because hip hop nowadays rarely has as much punch as this. Man, can't wait for the album "The Soul Purpose" to drop.