4. I Hate

The excitement is like a caterpillar running up and down your spine. The introduction is monumental, as ESAU enters, with one of the best songs that surfaced in this year of 2000. On "First" he goes "Now the serpent knowing the truth about the tree / coaxed the first sin to be committed by Eve / who in turn coaxed Adam to cover their nudity / and the Gods seeing this were very displeased / with no execution committed the first contradiction and the first eviction by sending the couple east / now the first couple became the first parents of the first son who became the first murderer and the first refugee / who creates the first question by marrying the first person not a part of the first dysfunctional family / was Mrs Cain the first daughter or the first person not discussed in the testament / and who were the people who would hold Cain liable for the first dismemberment /doesn't it seem odd that God had to mark him for safety / and why were there people in the land of Nod if they weren't put there by the Gods" and he ends with "make decisions for yourself, don't have them inflicted / by morals and values of the secretively wicked".

"Underground" further manifest that this quite possibly is the lyrical album of the year, declaring "you ain't underground cause you use big words, you ain't underground if you don't curse / you ain't underground cause you get creative with your adverbs". This lyrical übermacht is backed up by dope beats, both of the mentioned tracks produced by PhatBoy. On "Underground", EagleMan adds hard scratches to the track, that are further elaborated on "Original Duplicator", a turntablism interlude. PhatBoy then keeps it coming with guitars and a organ on "I Hate", that perfectly match the gripping words of ESAU, as he goes "this shit is fucked up, always gonna be fucked up / cause the people who don't give a fuck is fucking it up for the rest of us / now listen when I tell you, you can't stop what you don't control / so realize that hard heads, crack heads, winos, prostitutes, pimps, and pushers, corruption, murder, harassment, poverty, government, homelessness, bad times, death and high taxes they're always gonna roll / ... / I hate when hungry children watch NASA launch a new rocket / ... / I hate when the rich get richer and the poor get poorer and when unemployed workers are turned into modern day warriors / fighting to survive and enhance their lives with material objects that people call conveniences / ... / most of us work every day to try to get paid, but it's hard to have good credit on minimum wage / Congress got a raise / I didn't, in fact, I got fired I got wired, got 2 jobs making less than I did at one".

We are already runnig out of space and have only yet reached track no. 4, so let's progress a little quicker. The piano that Equinox from the Nobodies put to "Ahh!" provide the carpet to use sexual rhymes, and misleading hints, to talk about CDs and vinyl. "What More Can I Say!" features more lines that just have to be quoted, like "man it's official I'm 100% sure right now I ain't feeling shit, like I hold a tissue / ... / I love hip hop more than Janet and Whitney love women / I love hip hop more than Tevin Campbell loves semen / I love hip hop more than Michael Jackson hates his melanin and I love hip hop more than OJ Simpson loves his freedom / ... / I asked you about the 4 elements / you claimed there were 5, but then you turned around and couldn't even tell me 3 / then you got all defensive and asked how many units I soundscanned last week / I said about 3 / you called me a joke, showed me your iced out Rollie, 'cause that's what hip hop means to you Platinum sales and jewelry trophies". Damaged from the Yaggfu Front (now, who remembers them?), provides one of the nicest beats on "Stop Being Blinded", with composing a musical offering, that makes the best outta usually dissed keyboard chords. Da Wizard of Aahs also drops by to lend his rhymes to this cut, but it's ESAU that says "I look at the world pessimistically and I discovered it looks the same right back at me / the world is out to get me / salesmen try to jerk me, drunk drivers aiming their cars at me / and high school nerds are trying to hurt me / ... / last night on TV / I saw death and disease, I saw rape and conspiracy / I saw shit I hoped would never happen to me / I saw kids with no feet and kids with no teeth living poverty and complete misery / I also saw a new high on Wall Street / more money made today than ever in history, but none was giving to me or those kids that preceded".

"That's Real" is a short track based around 'keeping it real', before "I'm Going To Hell", a mk ultra produced track, and featuring Equinox from The Nobodies, starts with one of the nicest lines on this: "I feel no peer pressure. If I lived in Cali between Blood and Crip blocks I'd be a cross dresser". And he continues with more funny punchlines like "I once told Stevie Wonder to watch his diet / I put ground pork in Farrakhan's falafel and told him to try it". ESAU basically pisses off a whole lot of people, proclaiming in the end "you say I'm going to hell, well I'm already here", showing a thoughtful side to this joking. The humor is continued on "You Ain't Fly", where ESAU is running up to a whole bunch of people and telling them straight in the face that what they do is just not happening. Teaming up with BlackMel aka Supastition, ESAU goes on some head to head battle, with both trying to outsmart each other with clever punchlines on "ESAU vs. Blackmel", that features a hilarious sample at the end. Now things get more serious on "Me & My Baby", with Equinox again helping out with the hook, and PhatBoy putting together a dope piano driven beat. This track talks about a relationship where dependence, duty, responsibility and the wanting to hold onto the past, make one go through so much more, than one usually would bare. And the struggle continues on "Independents", a collaboration with Apocalypse from The Nobodies.

Back to his funny side, on "Boo", ESAU has enough self irony to rhyme "man there ain't too many kids out there wacker than me / except for Mase, Puffy and that whole damn Harlem World family / and that kid Cam'Ron you know that punk better keep his distance because his rhyming skills are about as tight as Lance Undea's business / The Farewell Tour and The Debut album, I've sold 3 units so far but you know I'm still counting and at this pace it will take me 69 years and 4 months to go platinum". And then on "U.R. Destine", ESAU even does a little science fiction, with a second meaning, that E' then exposes towards the end. We then approach "2 Many Emcees", a collaboration with The Nobodies, Yaggfu Front, Danja Mowf, Apathy and BlackMel, that sounds as good as this lineup has us suspect. Again doing a short track with "One In A Thousand", E' shows us the probability of getting recognized, before Mahogany teams up with a Da Wizard beat on "Merry Go Round", that again talks about the struggles to come up, giving it another twist though, going "I tried to get national radio airplay, but I couldn't get it if I didn't have national distribution / so I tried to get national distribution, but they said it wouldn't happen, if I wasn't getting national radio airplay / so I tried to submit my video to MTV, but they wouldn't air it without national distribution / so I went back and tried to get distribution, but they said it wouldn't happen if my video wasn't getting any MTV airplay". Finally, ESAU ends the album with "I Got All That", where he mocks all those flossing rappers, and ridicules their claims of material possessions and impossible accomplishments. Then again, this is only the official end, as we shouldn't miss the 'hidden cut', it being some linguistic lecture on 'fuck'. Heck, there's even some strange Japanese Pop following after this.

So then, a short conclusion: He might not be the most complex emcee out there, but every lyric on this is just a complete quotable. E' manages to put together 19 tracks, all surrounding a concept, being completely foreign to babbling, and rounding out an album that amazes, pleases and is being appreciated from the first to the last track. But, as so many other lyrical strong emcees do, he does not fall victim to weak beats. Not every beat is a monster, but most are seriously dope. And while it sounds corny to say so, this album unquestionably is a straight up must have.