1. The Company Flow

Funcrusher Plus is the debut album by Brooklyn, New York hip-hop group Company Flow, released on July 28, 1997 (see 1997 in music). It was the first album released on Rawkus Records, arguably the most popular and successful independent hip hop label of the late 1990s. Extremely well received - in the East Coast independent hip-hop community - the record is considered influential, but ultimately failed to significantly penetrate into market demographics outside of 'independent East Coast hip-hop,' that is to say, Funcrusher Plus did not see much mainstream play.

Listening to Company Flow is not a casual experience. 'We always drew people down the middle,' El-P remarked. 'There were never people who were like 'Eh, it's all right.' It was either 'I wanna find those guys and beat them senseless because their crazy noise is hurting me' or 'This is fucking incredible.' ' But despite their divisive reputation, Company Flow had an important role as one of the last crucial bridges between the East Coast hardcore battle rap of the 1990s and the deep-end abstraction that was to follow in the transition from underground hip-hop to 'indie rap'. It's the kind of rap that was out-there enough to be aggressively polarizing, yet true enough to the game that no less a classicist than DJ Premier co-signed it.Looking back at the tracks that first appeared on 1996's Funcrusher EP and the additional material that supplemented it on Funcrusher Plus a year later, you can hear where many of those space-rap acolytes of the late 90s got their motivation (even if they frequently picked up their verbosity without retaining their b-boy bonafides). But you can also hear the precedents, harbored in the grimy beats and cipher-based shit-talk that has a stylistic younger-brother kinship with the likes of Organized Konfusion, D.I.T.C., and first-wave Wu-Tang.

Now, after a few years in Rawkus-entangled out-of-print limbo, Funcrusher Plus has been reclaimed by Definitive Jux, brought back in a no-frills yet still-essential reissue that serves as a valuable reminder of how advanced MC/producers El-P and Bigg Jus and DJ Mr. Len were at the time- and, well, now.If you're more familiar with their solo work, Funcrusher Plus might be a bit of a surprise lyrically.

The Company Flow

There are a few signs of the personal details that'd inform El-P's later material- 'Last Good Sleep', in particular, is a vivid, stomach-turning account of growing up being kept awake by domestic violence- and subtle hints at the more culturally focused material Bigg Jus would develop in his later career, most clearly in the recollections of his graf-artist days in 'Lune TNS'. But for the most part, they're on some wall-to-wall battle-rap punchline business, and it's crafty, bewildering, repeat-rewind material.