In 1996, the son of Fox mogul, Rupert Murdock, formed a new independent label called Rawkus Records. They showed up on the hip-hop scene, delivering a less than stellar single from a cristal sippin’ mafioso crew called The Rose Family. After the single was shat upon by college deejays from east to west, the company re-evaluated it’s audience, and began delivering strong 12-inch singles from some of the most talented up coming emcees, from Mos Def to Company Flow to Shabaam Sahdeeq to Sir Menelik.

Now, the label has established themselves as not only a powerful force in underground hip-hop, but also a new home for backpackers to look to when the major labels deserted them for flashy, cristal sipping mafioso crews, like…uh… The Rose Family. (Oh, the irony.)

Despite the label’s almost flawless series of 12″ singles, the full lengths that they’ve delivered haven’t always lived up to quality of the singles. Company Flow’s “Funcrusher Plus” LP was brilliant, yet many of us already vibed to it a year before when it was released as an EP. The original “Soundbombing” CD also suffered this same sickness, as virtually all of the tracks were previously released. While good for the turntable impaired, we’d heard it all before, not to mention the annoying, high pitched squeals of DJ Evil Dee talking all over the tones. The label’s most anticipated double LP and self described “compilation album of the year”, Lyricist Lounge, seemed about as organized as your average underground hip-hop event. Finally, Black Star, the LP from future stars Mos Def and Talib Kweli was decent, but still seemed like 40% filler. The thoughts of the label only being able to drop solid singles echoed in my head, until now. Behold, “Soundbombing 2″.

If there is any project that should define Rawkus Records, this is it. One could look at this as the perfect underground hip-hop starting point for beginners. Considering that this album begins with the mainstream’s favorite lyricist dropping his usual sick rhymes on “Any Man”, it probably will be. Lyrically, Eminem is in top form on the album’s starter as he exclaims: “I’m ice grillin’ you / starin’ you down with grin to grim / I’m Eminem / you’re a fag in a women’s gym / I’m Slim / cuz Shady is really a fake alias / to save me with / in case I get chased by space aliens.” Word? At this point it’s only just begun, as it flows into two more attention grabbers, the all new ’99 mix of High & Mighty’s “B-boy Document”, with Mos Def and Mad Skillz, that Mighty Mi can only describe as “jiggy-backpack”, and then into what seems like “Soundclash pt 3″, as Shabaam Sahdeeq and Pharoahe Monch declare “WWIII” on the track.

Suddenly, the momentum of the album takes a quick dive, as things begin to slow down a bit. As a matter of fact, this seems to be one of the only flaws that the album contains, as instead of attempting to build some kind of momentum by starting with the mellower tracks and moving up to the hyper shit, The Beat Junkies seem to be jumping all over the place. More relaxing tracks from R.A. The Rugged Man, Reflection Eternal, and already classics from Medina Green (“Crosstown Beef”) and Sir Menelik (“7XL” w/ Brand Nubian) are then slid into the mix.

Things begin to pick right back up again during the album’s third set, starting off with the title track, “Soundbombing”, featuring the best in the west, Dilated Peoples and Alkaholik emcee, Tash. Proceeding this soulful freestyle session is a taste of what to expect from Thirston Howl III on one verse from “Brooklyn Hard Rock”, leaving you fiending for more. The political terrorism then begins with Pharoahe Monch’s brilliant “I Shot The Mayor” and then continues into Company Flow’s Dead Kennedy-esque look at America on “Patriotism”. The album then closes out with a few top notch joints from Common, Mos Def, Diamond, Reflection Eternal, and Shabaam.

The only real problem with the album is once again the lack of momentum, as the flow of it seems to move up and down, rather then building from the most laid back track to the hypest. Secondly, this, surprisingly, isn’t the most amazing performance from The Beat Junkies. Granted, the turntablist tricks are very tight, and well executed all around, but at times, after listening to previous tapes, it seems like they may have been holding back a little. As a matter of fact, sometimes, it even seems as if the project was sewn together with a little bit more than just two turntables and a mixer. As far as the album itself goes, given that virtually every one of these tracks rate highly on the rictor scale, the album boarderline’s being a hip-hop classic. But since this is really only a mixtape, rather than the expression of one single artist as an album, it gets stole on for one-half an “@”, especially considering that 50% of these tracks will probably pop up on these artists’ albums. Nevertheless, this one does live up to it’s self-executed title, “The official mixtape of 1999″.