810 and Mydus - Supply and Demand LP (Baltimore Hip Hop):
Recently, my man Black Sunn passed along a new LP from one of his fellow Charm City natives, 810. Produced by Mydus, a name that pops up on this site rather frequently, the album, Supply and Demand, is loaded with the kind of soul-heavy samples that stand in stark contrast to the B'more style beats that normally find themselves as the backdrop for rappers from 810's area code. After putting up roughly a dozen of the man's remixes, Mydus' name should speak for itself, though, so suffice it to say that the beats on this LP knock.
On the lyrical side of things, 810 does his best to step up to the same level as the production. Like just about every other unsigned rapper, 810 isn't quite a finished product, but the occasional rawness in his delivery will work itself out as he continues to perform - this LP is, in some ways, part of that development process, as you can hear him try out different flows, with the occasional verse dropped in double time.
He already has a good handle on the most important aspect of being an emcee, however, a quality that's been severely lacking in hip hop as of late; namely, creativity. Whereas a lot of developing emcees tend to take a formulaic approach to their music, emulating whatever happens to be popular on the radio, 810 stays in his own lane. Not just in his lyrics - which find him shouting out Troy McClure one moment and then moving on to reference World War II's infamous Hideki Tojo - but the actual concepts that he builds his songs around are quite different from what I've come to expect out of younger rappers. Perhaps the best example of this is his song Racism Reloaded, which finds 810 narrating the history of racism in the U.S. through the viewpoint of a slave owner:
There were a couple of songs on the album that fell short, but the one or two missteps on here are easily forgiven in light of how good the rest of the album is. Mydus once again has made a case for being perhaps the most talented producer without any sort of label deal. As for 810, this album would have been good enough even if he had just managed not to distract from the beats; the fact that he puts in some genuinely entertaining, and occasionally thought provoking, work on the mic is icing on the cake.
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