After hearing the ridiculously dope album, titled ‘Sidewalk Science’, that Beneficence dropped last year on Ill Adrenaline Records, I was looking forward to hearing the Brick City emcee’s follow up release. I was definitely expecting something special. After all, Beneficence has been a dope emcee since he dropped his first 12″ releases way back in the 90’s, and if anything he seems to have gotten better and better as time has gone by. This contrasts to the usual pattern of rappers, who were dope back in their early days when they were hungry for success and trying to get a name for themselves, becoming lazy and unfocused on the mic after they have established themselves in the scene. Although, I was expecting this release to be something special, I wasn’t expecting it to be as good as ‘Sidewalk Science’, especially when I realised that it was 20 tracks long. I mean, when an album is more than 15 tracks long there has to be some filler right? Wrong!!!! The 20 tracks featured on the album are all very good and the vast majority are absolute sure shot bangers. I actually cannot believe the sustained level of quality throughout this album. It is just perfect. I literally can’t fault it. I could play this album over and over again for weeks. The album follows and improves upon the formula used in creating ‘Sidewalk Science’. Dope rhymes from the Newark, New Jersey veteran lyricist (who has long been affiliated with The Artifacts, and who has made a number of underrated releases over the course of the past two decades) delivered in an intelligent and assured classic sounding flow, is the first ingredient. The next ingredient is the classic golden era sounding hip hop production. Whether rough and rugged street anthems or smooth and soulful conscious joints, the production across this release and it’s predecessor have had that classic 90’s boom bap sound in abundance. On this album Beneficence has worked with an even wider range of producers than on ‘Sidewalk Science’. That album featured production from 5 different beat makers. This album contains beats from 13 different producers, most of whom are relatively unknown, but all of whom do themselves and hip hop proud and suggest that they could play a part in a real pure hip hop renaissance movement. The final ingredient in the formula used to create this perfect, 5 mic, hip hop release is the guest verses. The large number of emcees who have contributed verses for this album are all dope. No exceptions! Most of them, like Beneficence himself, are also vastly underrated. Only a true hip hop head will understand the pedigree of emcees like Herb McGruff, the Harlem emcee who started out alongside Cam’ron and Big L in the group Children of the Corn, or Pete Rock’s brother Grap Luva and fellow member of the group InI, Rob O, or Nature, the emcee from The Firm that nobody ever remembers, or indeed Lord Tariq, the Bronx emcee who experienced a very brief spot in the limelight back in the late 90’s as one half of the duo Lord Tariq and Pete Gunz and then faded into obscurity. Even the legendary emcees like AG of D.I.T.C., El Da Sensei of The Artifacts, Chubb Rock, and Masta Ace, are rappers that don’t tend to be given the level of recognition that their contributions to hip hop should have afforded them. The younger and fresher guests like Rashan, and Roc Marciano are emcees that are yet to experience much limelight but who have shown that they have a huge amount of talent and promise. The bringing together of all of these talented emcees and producers on an album like this just feels to me like such a positive thing not only for my grateful ears, but for hip hop as a whole. This album dropped just over a week ago now and I would suggest that if you haven’t already heard it you check it out immediately. After this release and the Purpose and Confidence album released last month, I am eagerly awaiting the next release from Ill Adrenaline Records. I will post some tracks from the album here to give heads a taste of the dopeness!
Hype Verse 
I need to be purchasing this bad boy!