LISTEN: MF Grimm - The Original

My musical tastes from '90-'99 are a bit hazy, what with the whole "I was born then became a kid" thing, but I still remember going over to a friend's house to listen to Eminem's Slim Shady LP, and being consumed by the punch-lines, funny lyrical imagery, and surreal swear words. "I Just Don't Give a Fuck" was my favourite song for a couple years back then, and I could rap the entire thing to kids in the playground, without even knowing of half the things the song was saying. I bleached my hair a year later, and no I'm not showing you a picture.

I first heard MF Grimm (born Percy Carey) on the track "Tick, Tick..." off MF Doom's Operation: Doomsday album, a fine example of New York rap from the late 90's. That track exemplifies the pure rawness of Grimm's style; though it's there, it isn't about the quantity of rhymes (ironically, considering he released the fantastic triple album American Hunger, a first for hip-hop), but rather their quality.

With "The Original", off the hugely slept on MF EP, Grimm delivers; "rhymes so crazy, Son of Sam did half my tracks." There are volleys of completely outrageous claims thrown from every direction in this innercity block-spitting example of underground battle-rhyming, as Grimm reveals "the world is too little, Grimm reaper run the f'kin solar system." This is imaginative swordplay in the purest form. The beat's an effective, simple drum loop from the depths of the underground, acting as a canvas for Grimm to paint you right into his trap, engulfing your ears with a little glimmer into the heart of Percy Carey. 

Surviving a murder attempt that left him paralyzed from the waist down, putting up a one-day bail before a life sentence to record an entire album, countering the sentence to be commutated down to four years, all while delivering this calibre of hip-hop demands recognition. He even wrote a frickin' comic book. Please, take a moment and recognize.

Listen.