Let’s go down the list, shall we? This trio hails from Colorado Springs, CO – not exactly a hip-hop haven. They are self-professed Christian rappers whose stage intro in concert is a synchronized dance we’re supposed to accept because they’re “rap”, and whose lead personality, the ridiculously monikered Mr. J. Medeiros, sounds exactly like Zach de la Rocha without the rage. In fact, everything about the Procussions is somehow borrowed from somewhere else, be it conscious rap, nouveau-soul, or revivalism, and thrown into the pot like so much jambalaya, and my first spin of their Rawkus debut, 5 Sparrows For 2 Cents, was cynically flipped through with an admitted bias. It wasn’t until I went back for my review listening session, where I listen with a bit more attention for references, potent lyrics and general message, that I suddenly – startlingly – remembered that, in the right mood, I love jambalaya.

    I’ve since tried to pinpoint where they won me over, but every time I’m on the verge of a revelation I fail. But I can say for certain there is some highly electric activity beginning with Talib Kweli-assisted “Miss January.” Easing into the album with a wistful post-Kanye beat, the emcee runs through the loves he’s lost through the years and concludes: “So here I sit at the bar amongst these stargazers/Caught in the crosshairs/The target of a heartbreaker.” A bittersweet simplicity pervades the majority of the tracks, shouting out both God and Cameron Crowe with equal aplomb, and some momentum picks up quickly. “Untitled” is a needless, clumsy attempt at Beastie-style claptrap but the very next song, “Little People” – a mournful plea for greater attention to AIDS, school shootings, et al – is a highlight. The entire album plays like a group who wants to try everything and generally bats about fifty percent. The Procussions are not hesitant to fail utterly, and they do several times here, however they have the resilience to pick themselves up and kill it on the next one, a quality so rare in today’s rap field where both the major label thoroughbreds and the meticulously backpacked bohemians groom every detail for maximum crossover impact. Can’t hate on that.

      On “Night Flyer,” Nogatco introduces our setting as a Disney-fied Central Florida; with its swampy surroundings and quaint, retro-futuristic Epcot globe centerpiece, it should be the perfect setting for an emcee whose press photo is himself performing an alien autopsy. Delivering apparent chest-thumping lines like “I’m more space than you,” Nogatco, the character drifts through the first half of the disc, through the mid-tempo piano pluck of “Celestial,” and onto the utterly monotonous drawl of “Alpha Omega” and “Big Adventure.” It isn’t until the blip-hop paranoia of “Different” that Keith finds his groove, but from here on Nogatco Rd. is a galactic hitcher’s joy ride. “Capture (Back to Me)” dips into a low grumble of space coasting, and the finale of “Live Dissection” brings along Sole and an entertainingly lively Sage Francis for a cram session of political reference and conspiracy tag lines.

     There is nothing on Nogatco Rd. that can’t be pulled from any number of independent hip hop releases by vaguely notorious artists - metallic production and faux-activist musings - but what distinguishes this outing, besides the novelty value of a bonus track containing Keith’s scientific report on his personal discovery of aliens, is Keith’s hypnotic ability to capture his audience with his ramblings and not let go. Whether the listener chooses to buy into it and walk around in his space shoes, or passively bear witness to the spectacle, there is active participation required in this release, and there is some amount of brilliance to it.

    The frustration continues on The Heart of tha Streetz Vol. 2 – I Am What I Am, a release that should be utterly compelling in the wake of Katrina, not to mention Juvenile and Lil’ Wayne’s ascension to pretty good and amazing, respectively. The effort begins with promise on “Move Around,” a trunk-rattling, Southern-fried banger with the endearing chorus “I’m from the ghetto homeyyy/I was raised on bread and bolognayyyyy.” That certain hurricane is addressed defiantly and that’s the tone B.G. maintains on that topic throughout. It’s exactly what we would expect and doesn’t disappoint. From this point, however, the release goes through the slow motions. A couple of mid-tempo’s with an R&B refrain here, an ATL whistle there. The requisite Soulja Slim shout-out track “Living Right” flirts with turning into an ear-pleaser, but Tone Tone does it no favors with his foot-dragging rhythm and annoying vocal contributions. When Gizzle is finally given a decent background to ride, the Swisha-style “Deuces Up,” complete with Paul Wall guest, it’s an ill fit.

    The truth is, B.G.’s voice wants to party, and that’s at the heart of the disappointment here. Juvie’s menacing growl can support throwing on a George W. Bush mask and flipping birds amidst the wreckage. Lil’ Wayne’s outer space inflection demands to be listened to no matter what he’s putting out there. But Gizzle was blessed with a turn-it-to-11 tone, but he’s found himself with lofty ambitions he can’t live up to, and surrounded by a posse that lack imagination. “Yeah Nigga Yeah” is the sonic equivalent of a lazy, herb-heavy Sunday on the couch with your boys, but without the fun. “Pussy Pop,” in a very weird way, is the biggest letdown, because if there’s one thing you can count on with the N.O., it’s a good strip club joint. This, like everything else on the release, comes off like high schoolers imagining what a lap dance might feel like; in other words way off the mark.

    He says on “Gotta Get Me,” I told ya/Once my deal up, game over/I’m goin independent/And gettin money like Hova.” After all of it, there is still much to like about B.G, but every choice he’s made on this album (as well as his recent industry trajectory) has been wrong, and while he’ll always hold a special place in the hearts of anyone who ever banged out “Bling Bling,” it may be time to swallow the pride and (gasp!) ask Weezy for some career advice.

    Continuously shouting his name from what is surely a friend’s bathroom into a bullhorn to proclaiming himself “one of the great torchbearers of this rap era” on the catchy soul of “The Torch,” Floe doesn’t ever seem to quite believe his own self-generated hype. This leads to not only an uneven listen, but something of a fascinating one. He grossly overestimates his comfort speed on title track “Floe Almighty” and never regains a hold on the beat. Diablo Archer, a far more polished and mainstream-ready emcee unintentionally one-ups Edgar on “One and One,” while Floe naively maintains “we showin’ you how it’s done.” Hell, he can’t even be found on the suddenly all-inclusive hot spots iTunes or Amazon.

    Yet there is something so endearing about this release. The production does what it can with very little, particularly 9th Wonder - who in this critic’s opinion is still not living up to his early promise - and Floe does perpetually sound canned, but the never die attitude, the very Balboaness of Allen Floe, is sure to seek out the underdog freak in all of us and exploit it for all its worth. His really needs to knock out the Russian on his next one, though, or risk losing the extra rounds he’s earned here.

    Every modern hip-hop album must have an intro, but M1 doesn’t waste a second to break from the norm, giving his listeners an actual intro; that is to say, a gradual and light introduction to an effort that, in about fifty minutes, gracefully presides over the coolest poly-sci lesson on campus. A string of outstanding tracks is led off by “Land, Bread, & Housing,” a sly and completely effective comeback to the ‘money, rims & bitches’ lifestyle that misdirects the priorities of so many otherwise talented artists. “For You,” a plaintive, hard-as-granite dedication to a baby mama is complemented by the smooth title song featuring the sexiest chorus this side of Mariah, a side of M1 that’s unnerving to a long-time prez fan; despite the adjustment period, it becomes undeniable that this may be M1′s best side, though he fails to recognize that “It’s A Conspiracy” may not be the ladies’ knockout line it used to be.

    There are missteps, to be sure. “Been Through” showcases an embarrassingly uninspired Ghostface cameo, and “Gunslinger,” while cool in a jokey way, is still jokey. But as a whole, Confidential is an acknowledgment that simply “going political” is no longer the radical move in hip-hop, but rather the focused and imaginative compilation of a solid string of high quality tracks.

   73′s most distinctive talent has always been to hint at the greatest echoes of every musical medium. This smorgasbord of notes arrives late on Screenings with “No Origin,” the frenzied tuning of a radio dial that allows just enough space to filter a jazz trumpet here, a plucky piano there, and bits of conversation melded together to reflect an overarching white noise that can only be biting metaphor.

   Prefuse addresses last year’s critics in a couple of interludes that mock a typical interview with “illiterate” fanboys who only want to take him down a notch. They are, at best, distractions, and only serve to further illustrate the artist’s disillusionment with the music industry’s machine. What doesn’t wash is that Prefuse clearly takes pride in producing tracks for the enlightened; if you don’t “get” his style, you’re not really invited anyway. However, his website profiles the press he’s been privy to in the last few years, and the coverage (Pitchfork, Urb, XLR8R) hardly lends believability to his claims. This would be a small beef, and one chalked up to an artist’s right to be angry at no one in particular, if it didn’t inform so much of the new album. Prefuse sinks into these beats and they come off as not only the random shuffle in his mind that has set him apart for years, but as a comfort blanket/shield that wards off his inherent need to ground the work in realism. Consider “Weight Watching.” Here you have what approaches an actual hook, supported by a dreamy and well-textured digital ash; the clanking and clattering of what is surely a malfunctioning plumbing system, however, swiftly and utterly breaks the spell. It’s a defense mechanism not nearly as buried as his musical intentions and obscures the view of where the record stands as a whole.

     There are moments of bliss on Security Screenings, and they arrive so hungrily anticipated that the dreaded critics Prefuse shies away from may lose their bearings for a moment. Tunde of TV on the Radio assists on “We Leave You In a Cloud of Thick Smoke and Sleep” and Prefuse’s brand of Sigur Ros Rap never seems more wide open and full of possibilities. “With Dirt and Two Texts (Afternoon Version)” is one of the only actual full instrumentals that could work as a single, but of course is nearly devoid of human voice, and leaves only imagining how hard a Ghostface or Aesop Rock could bring it over its pounding, Doom-esque spine. Of course, that way of thinking is exactly what got him into trouble in the first place.

    Termanology latches on to the old days for ammo and inspiration. Yes, he falls sharply into the Today’s-Rappers-Don’t-Know-Nothin’ category, but in fairness he makes a strong argument. The album kicks off with a woozy jazz beat on “This is Hip Hop,” under Termanology’s reminiscence of growing up with Dre and Snoop, Marley Marl, and crack, setting the stage for over an hour’s worth of rap luminary shout-outs in the vein of Game’s West Coast obsessions on The Documentary, for which he endured heavy backlash.

    Hip Hop stars are only the supporting players in the memory of Termanology’s life thus far. The star, as it must be, is Term himself and a bulk of the album is devoted to obsessively covering every highlight and lowlight of his first twenty-two years. Beginning with the Premiere-esque bombast of “Motion Picture,” in which Termanology compares his story to cult faves of the past (Put your hands on anybody that I’m rappin’ wit/You can play Pacino and I’ll play the Devil’s Advocate) and Mark Romanek’s video for “99 Problems,” throughout the warm piano-clinking “22 Years,” the nostalgic strings of “When We Were Kids,” featuring the ever-dependable fellow Boston cat Akrobatik, and on to the dark, uncomfortable “My Life,” Out The Gate becomes an almost shockingly confessional album, but one that wears a bit thin toward the end, as any biopic must. DC The MIDI Alien, the album-length producer here, helps his emcee finish strong with the climactic “Ready,” a track at once cinematic and uplifting, (it could have been a great capper to the Rocky ending of Em’s own flick), but cuts like the requisite, tired fam song, “Mommy, Daddy, Grandma,” and the breathy, timid flow on “Ain’t Fuckin’ With This,” tend to undermine the precending strong points. Termanology resides firmly in an underground market infamous for its frenetic output, and there is simply no creative reason for epic, 20-track albums any longer.

   There have been many rumors swirling around Termanology since his Unsigned Hype look in The Source, but none make more sense than the Shady/Aftermath talks. His closet-cleaning style, not to mention a DJ Premier endorsement, bring to mind the young bleached rapper that shocked and awed on his debut six years ago. At the time, we weren’t even sure we wanted to hear everything Eminem had to tell us, and while Termanology’s lyrical dexterity is not his greatest asset, he paints a vivid picture that can be equally uneasy. It may not be brash and gutter like 50′s brushwork, or contain the witty poetry of an AceyAlone, but at the very least, Termanology & DC have made a contribution that begs another, more serious, look at the once satirical “mean streets of Boston.”

“There has to be a reason for it,” says Sage Francis, one of the frontrunners of the scene. Last year Sage released the critically lauded, commercially ignored A Healthy Distrust on the heavily punk rock Epitaph label, a move that seemed to only confirm the underground’s mainstream momentum. Entertainment Weekly praised the album’s “ferocity,” and Blender said, “His fire-and-brimstone confessionals are as complex as they are venomous.” What’s more, the Rhode Island native, along with contemporaries MF Doom, Immortal Technique, and K-Os, rocked the annual Coachella Festival in California last summer. “It was a hundred degrees out and it was just miserable,” says Francis. “I had been watching the other performers and I got a real sick feeling. I kind of screamed out ‘I hate Weezer!’ and fuckin’ plowed into our set. I could say that was one of my favorite performances to date.” It may not move millions of units, but this is still rap, and if there’s one characteristic the underground world will not surrender, it’s attitude, and despite the rough year, Francis remains firm. “I think mainstream rap is at the same stage big-hair rock was in the late 80′s,” says Francis. “I mean people are getting burned out on it.” Sage points to a black hole of charisma from the superstars of right now, as opposed to say LL Cool J in the 80′s or Jay-Z in the 90′s. “There’s always gonna be sub par people getting accolades. But they’re not even entertaining like Britney Spears is!” Referring to last year’s particularly infuriating MTV VMA’s, in which host Diddy literally tossed out jewelry and cash, giving an entire genre an even worse name in one fell swoop, Sage points out, “These guys can’t even rap and it’s their job. I’m not saying they should be flashy. I’m not saying they should have dance routines, although they might as well. They’re just trying to get over on the power of their hit and mope around on stage like fuckin’ idiots.”

In the last couple of years, the largest amount of buzz has circled around another self-proclaimed “backpacker.” Kanye West, before the gold diggers and Jesus poses, wore Polo shirts and spit verses that bore more than a passing resemblance to what emo rappers like Atmosphere had been playing with for years. West didn’t just come from out of nowhere; he seemed to represent the perfect spawn of “conscious” rap like Mos Def and Aceyalone, and the flashy materialism of the Dirty. There may have been, however, some wolf in the sheep’s linen suit, and Francis claims to see through it all. Throwing Common in the mix for good measure, he says, “I don’t buy it. I’ve followed them through the years. I’ve listened to how they talk. I’ve seen them live and it doesn’t translate. I’m not gonna buy into them being ultra-conscious, pro-black leaders. I didn’t listen to [Late Registration] cause I felt duped by the first album.”

Francis says he is taking some time off this year, but with the nation facing another election that may actually be important for our future, don’t expect an artist coming off a tour sponsored by Knowmore.org (a heavily left-leaning news site), and who made his name with “Makeshift Patriot,” a response to the trampling of civil rights in the wake of 9/11, to stay quiet for long. “I think [Katrina] raised the consciousness to problems in America really well,” says Sage. “That’s the only upside. Maybe this is one step closer to Bush getting impeached. Just getting everyone on the same page, like ‘Holy cow, this guy is incompetent. He doesn’t care.’”

Sound like a familiar refrain? Perhaps the alienation gap between true underground rap and Mr. West isn’t all that large after all. “Yeah, he’s the guy who said it,” admits Sage. “Everyone else was not saying it. I tip my hat to that. Does he truly understand the complexities of what happens in our country and what happens worldwide? No, I don’t think he does. I think he’s an arrogant loudmouth, [but] I think it’s important that he used the opportunity.”

And it’s here we get to the very core of why indie rap’s bubble burst last year. Why A Healthy Distrust, along with every single underground Hip Hop record last year failed to clear 100,000. Why, for example, Sage Francis’ eloquent dissection of “Slow Down Gandhi,” (Who’s the one to blame for this strain in my vocal chords/ Who can pen a hateful threat but can’t hold a sword/ It’s the same who complain about the global war/But can’t overthrow the local joker that they voted for) can never compete with “George Bush doesn’t care about black people.” What practically any music executive, MTV production assistant, or even retail chain clerk can tell you is that mainstream has no time for all that. Sound bites. Chi-lites samples. White tees. In a modern music business hemorrhaging cash, an industry that can no longer afford to take “chances” or nurture “talent,” playing their game is a survival instinct.

Lucky for us the underground scene only knows how to play Dominoes.