This Is Book's Music

Wizdom and Epidemmik have not made a full project in a few years, but their Soul Of A Man was an album I really liked and I’m sure others had hoped they would eventually do something else. It hasn’t stopped Wizdom from making music as one of many great representatives of Seattle’s hip-hop scene, and pretty much everything this MC does is amazing. Yet when you become confident on an artist, you sometimes tend to put your mind on automatic, thinking “cool, I know I will remain a fan and will embrace anything they throw my way.” Then comes this.

Unearthed is an album (if you want to get technical, it could also be an EP or “mini-album”, as it clocks in at a little over 28 minutes) that shows why these two were great together in the first place, with Epidemmik’s production showing the type of excellence I wish other producers would make an attempt in trying to reach. As for Wizdom, he is someone who can rhyme in a number of ways, from being “street ready” to “party jams” and he will always take it to the level of no return, only to stop, turn around and make the listener feel like “no no no, I want more, I want more”. The term “patience comes to those who wait”, and Wizdom simply loves not only to rhyme, but is someone who loves wordplay and it shows. The song that did it for me was “Funnel Of Love”, which feels good and I caught myself really getting into it, but when you hear the last verse and the storyline finally reveals itself, I laughed. I’ve always liked when rappers are not afraid to be funny, as that link between lyricism/wordplay and humor is an important one. If hip-hop has been accused of taking itself too seriously, it’s nice to hear a song that doesn’t mind laughing at itself, and this works.

Unearthed shows someone who is confident in what he’s doing, with some of the doubts in life that simply comes from living. He’s also not ashamed of focusing on those trials and tribulations, or what success means, which sometimes has nothing to do with stepping up to the mic, as he shows in his latest music video.

Losing can sometimes mean winning, and losing something does not mean losing everything that makes you who you are. One can say that for Wizdom, perhaps losing the non-essential means shedding things of the past and unearthing a “new found confidence” as he says in the title track. It is perhaps a renewal of what has already been there, or discovering what you may have hidden yourself from. If that sounds deeper than what you’d expect from your everyday rhymer, then listen to Unearthed and listen to what Wizdom & Epidemmik have created as a nice way to end 2011 in style.