Cats overseas seem to have a greater appreciation for what is considered “true hip-hop” than do the yanks on this side of the world. Euro producers Simon Gilbert and Julian Baker, otherwise known as The Creators, bring back the sound of the early 90′s, of which many still consider to be the greatest era of hip-hop music. Feel good, sample-based, jazzy tracks were the shit back then, but with sampled artists getting wise and asking for royalty checks over the years, that art is beginning to be forgotten.

But The Creators either A) don’t care, B) have enough money to pay off whoever they stole these grooves from, or C) are cooking up these musical compositions themselves, because The Weight brings back that old feeling. And who better to bust on these beautiful tracks than today’s emcees whom also subscribe to this ideal of good music? Included are West Coast underground superstars like Dilated Peoples and The Lootpack to the Matt Fingaz team, including underground favorites like Mike Zoot and Consequence.

The album opens with El Da Sensei’s “The Music”, a perfect intro to an album that focuses on arguably the most important aspect of any song. Dilated’s Evidence continues things with the “Heart Pound”, another exercise in cool conceit that would have blended in perfectly with The Platform. Of course, Mos Def & Talib Kweli get recycled for “Another Another World”, as well as the b-side favorite, “Hard Margin “. Mike Zoot and F.T. (Fuc That)  (just form a group fellas!), also get ample time to shine on “Hoes and Dough “, “Oh Yeah”, and “No Love”, while Q-Tip ‘s protege, Consequence, does his thing on “Watch Us Tonight” and “In and Out”.

While this impressive line up of rookie emcees compliments the beats of The Creators perfectly, the album isn’t flawless. The intent of the album is obviously to spotlight new and upcoming emcees, but at the same time, unfamiliar listeners might be looking for more seasoned rappers to spit on these otherwise wonderful beats. Another small complaint is the wasting of excellent beats on the interludes, which do little but show-off who The Creators get props from. Instead, it may have been better for the album to just speak for itself. Finally, being that this is a production album, it still suffers from being almost too diverse, sounding more like a compilation, than an album with one common style.

Nevertheless, listeners will not be complaining about this record. The beats are some of the best the underground has to offer, and it helps shine light on some otherwise slept on emcees. With Simon and Julian perfecting a lost art like this, who knows what incredible results would arise if they were to produce entire albums for forgotten groups like Black Sheep, Digable Planets, or Das Efx? Hey, we can dream, can’t we?