Much like their polar opposites, M.O.P., the collective of genius MC’s known as Anticon has a love / hate relationship with its audience. The divided hip-hop populace either falls into two categories, those that dig Anticon, and those that don’t. Anticon’s biggest fans worship the ground that Sole, Dose, Why, Jel, and the crew walk on, some even calling it the most unadulterated form of hip-hop brilliance ever created, but as Sole himself once put it, “These same kids have never heard Freestyle Fellowship”, or for that matter, Critical Beatdown, or It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hoid Us Back, or Paid In Full, and the list goes on.

The opposite extreme, is the head who despises Anticon. The kid who was raised on conventional hip-hop, whether it’s as underground as Dilated Peoples, as gangsta as Dr. Dre, or as jiggy as Biggie. While these heads have been exposed to probably more hip-hop music than the seventeen-year-old Anticon worshipper, the sound of Sole and company is so far from street level hip-hop they are used to, that they can’t even grasp it.

I’d like to think of myself as one of the few listeners that falls into the center of these two extremes. I’ve watched and inadvertently helped the career of Sole, when I noticed his talent in the early days of Live Poets, by pubbing it on this website and in college radio land. I’m still a fan of Sole’s woefully penned rhymes about love, hate, and hip-hop, but I also am among those who get lost in the space of some of the other members’ complexity.

Enter The Giga Single, a seventeen-track odyssey for the price of a 12-inch. Working as this year’s introductory piece for the Anticon family, its purpose is not to generate papes, but instead to get their names out. Each of the crew are equally represented best on the Giga theme-song, “We Ain’t Fessin’”, an Unkle-esque track that gives just enough shine to each member, still remaining somewhat bound in accessibility. Many of the solo offerings are more introspective to each character in the Anticon universe, some more interesting than others. Sole vents with thought provoking, crucial poetics on “Silence”, while Buck 65 plays the part well of a deranged and introverted “Pen Thief”. Sage Francis will amaze you with his conversational cadences on the depressing “Inherited Scars”, as will Alias on the equally drowsy, yet almost bouncy “Watching Water”.

Many of the aforementioned tracks pack production that remains a little more down to earth, perfectly capturing the ambience of the lyrics. But when things really start going against the grain, it works to Anticon’s disadvantage. Tracks like “Pedestrian For Vessel ” (Brandon), suffer from production that first assumes the listener doesn’t care about how musically unstable or off-key that it is. Meanwhile, selections like “You’ll Know Where Your Plane Is” (Why) and “My Way Out Of A Paper Bag” (Themselves) attempt styles so awkward that the listener doesn’t much care to work at deciphering the lyrics.

Otherwise, when Anticon wants to keep the attention of the “not-so-advanced listener”, they can do it well. Recognize that this isn’t at all hip-hop for the casual listener, and to some, because the ghetto element has been extracted, this isn’t even hip-hop. But when listening to this unclassified form of boom-bap, realize you have to pay close attention to every word that is spit to enjoy it. While you may not want to put this much work into your daily hip-hop listening sessions, when the music and style is delivered correctly, it just might be worth the effort.