i'm usually not big on an album with so many features, but verbal kent makes this work by weaving the guests into the appropriate concept for each. production is thorough too.

Want to impress that rare girl at your school or work who can wax intellectual about both indie rock and break dancing? Next time she asks you for a ride home, have this CD playing. Put it on track four (There’s a bunch of bullshit at the beginning, but we’ll get to that in a minute). Turn it up loud enough for her to hear the words, but not so loud that you can’t tell her about the lyrical genius she’s listening to. When she inevitably asks, “Who is this?” you pretend you’ve known about Verbal Kent for years. You tell her about how in the late 1990s, he started a live five-piece hip hop band called The Organic Mind Unit, and then he and fellow OMU emcee Willis Drummond II went on to form The Unusual Suspects. He’s appeared on a few other albums, and he’s opened shows for a long list of more recognizable rappers such as the GZA, who he samples briefly on What Box. He still works with OMU, you’ll tell your sure-to-be-impressed lady friend. But this album, the one you’re listening to now, this is his solo album. And it’s about to kick your ass. Verbal Kent is simultaneously the past and the future of music. He’s a battle rapper who, by his mere association with KRS-ONE, the Pharcyde and Wordsworth (of the Lyricist Lounge), doesn’t need to spend much time explaining why he’s valid in hip hop despite his skin tone. And he doesn’t. So I won’t either. At the same time, he’s taking the art of battle rap to a level that his predecessors couldn’t reach. Like early Eminem (think “Any Man” from Rawkus Records’ Soundbombing II), he spits ridiculously clever and calculated lines that will force you to rewind them at least once to catch what he just said. You’ll probably rewind them again to learn the lines so you can sing along. How about this: “I can spit an a cappella that can knock a fella from his chair out his Roc-A-Wear.” Or this: “Badly bruised, battered and beaten by the bastard artisan. You couldn’t move the crowd with a case of Parkinson’s.” Or: “You need a new game, something to do instead. Because I wouldn’t be supportive if I was your wooden leg.” What Box is filled with some nice beats, particularly on “Tomatoes,” that track I told you to have playing when you pick up that girl who is by now rocking along with you, and “Big Buildings.” They’re really simple drum and bass lines with some slick scratching and few fun samples, which is a perfect platform for Verbal Kent to stand out on. And if you don’t bob your head to “The Remix,” you better have a neck brace on. But you don’t buy an album like this for the production. You get it because Verbal Kent is sharp and complex yet immaturely funny. It’s like his sense of humor stopped developing at age 12, but his brain went on to graduate from high school and then drop out of an Ivy League college. There is one problem here, though: all the filler. At barely 45 minutes, this album is way too long. There are three little snippets called “Spit to Kill I, II and III.” There’s the out-of-place “Power,” which, because of its forced optimism, is a bummer. There’s a completely unnecessary intro followed by a ho-hum opening track, both of which are like tasteless, odorless, colorless sprinkles on top of an otherwise delicious hot fudge sundae. Leave all of that stuff off the Verbal Kent CD you burn for your new girlfriend. Reviewed by Taylor Loyal

Rappers who strictly drop battle/braggadocio verses enjoy a dubious distinction in rap at best nowadays (see: Canibus), but that doesn’t stop emcees like Chicago lyricist Verbal Kent from trying their hand at the art. Obviously not as dedicated to spinning elaborate narratives as his The Usual Suspects namesake, Verbal Kent’s talent lies in his ability to combine crafty punch lines and metaphor with rhythmic structure and phrasing to create venomous rap bars. Having spent the last five years honing his skills doing solo cuts in addition to performing as an emcee for the five-piece live Hip-hop band Organic Mind Unit, Kent steps out into the limelight with his solo debut, this year’s What Box. Unfair as it is to compare every white battle rapper coming out to Eminem, What Box songs like “The Remix” practically beg for the comparison to be made. Here, Verbal Kent rhymes zany braggadocio similar to Slim Shady’s early days on the mic, the similarities between the two only further highlighted by the track that sounds ripped directly from Dr. Dre’s innermost Aftermath archives. Kent even manages a reasonable facsimile of one of the Detroit rapper’s patterns and reliance on shock value: “your songs make me feel depressed/ I couldn’t get excited if I were a pope and you were a boy in a dress.” “The People’s Rapper” is similarly Shadylike, Kent spitting barbs over an impish orchestral sample beefed up by low-end countercurrents and confrontational drums. Still, even with the stylistic similarities to MTV’s golden boy, Kent does manage to distinguish himself often throughout What Box. Indie heads will be most familiar with Verbal Kent through his sharp “Alien Rock” single, a simple but gritty head-nodder with free-associative lyrics flowing over throaty bass guitar grooves. And though it’s the b-side for the “Alien Rock” single, “Combat” featuring One Man Army of Binary Star positively could have stood on its own. Both show their stripes as experienced lyricists, though Army’s wit is more subtle: “I weave and bob your punchlines, don’t ‘like’ your similes.” For a welcome but rare change of pace, the artist’s political and social musings over the translucent, galactic effects of “Power” allow him to show more depth than otherwise seen on the LP. Naturally Verbal Kent isn’t about to let his solo drop without giving his affiliate artists a chance to shine. Iomos Marad and Willis Drummond II represent their native stomping grounds with “From The City,” the three vividly describing the pulse and attitude of the Chicago. Drummond, Rusty Chains, and Alltruisms are on hand for “Get a Job,” lacing the funky bass and bells loop with a dexterous round robin not-so-politely encouraging sucker emcees to consider finding a new vocation. Then, by far the biggest name on the album, Lyricist Lounge legend Wordsworth joins Verbal Kent and Rusty Chains in gushing unrelenting torrents of metaphor and invective on “Alley Rap,” making excellent use of the shadowy keys and punctuating orchestral hits. As solid as What Box is, the album’s greatest flaw is that it contains nothing new that would serve to really captivate the listener. Verbal Kent’s superfluity of freestyles prove him to be solid in both rhyme structure and flow, but even with his affected vocal growl concealing the lightness of his voice, his eccentric verses will still only inevitably draw parallels to the Mathers Monopoly – an institution the emcee honestly isn’t brawny enough to stand up to yet. Similarly, the beats used throughout What Box will certainly keep heads nodding for the most part, but the production methodology is nothing new to anyone who has listened to Hip-Hop for any length of time. Still, while this album may not be as outside of the proverbial “box” as Verbal Kent would like, the skill and hunger shown on What Box does firmly establish him as one of the Chicago underground’s artists to watch in the years to come.

Dan Weiss, aka Verbal Kent, an MC for the live hip-hop band Organic Mind Unit, follows up last year's Alien Rock 12-inch with his full-length solo debut. The beats are from Kaz1, the Opus, K-Kruz, and Overflo, and guests on the mike include Iomos Marad, Qwazaar, and One Man Army -- but Kent's sharp observations and clever rhymes dominate. He comes out swinging too: on the first cut he declares, "It's rap's version of Frasier Crane, I'm rap's version of a crashing plane / Packed with passengers hijacked . . . anthrax in press packages / Verbal is the people's rapper -- you're full of fecal matter." His flow is smooth, despite his habit of pronouncing every last letter of a word -- even the ones other white people leave off -- but his heady, slightly nasal voice handicaps him when he's trying to sell the tough talk of "Tomatoes & Glocks" and "Combat." On the whole, though, What Box is an engaging record that promises better things to come -- the backing tracks to "The Zone" and "From the City" are imaginative collages, and "Big Buildings" has a ferocious symphonic thrust.