In yesterday’s post I heaped praise on one of my favorite Hip-Hop artists of the moment, a Chicago-based emcee named Serengeti, declaring his most recent project, a collaborative effort with producer Polyphonic the Verbose called Don’t Give Up, my favorite record of 2007 that featured “rapping” as it’s predominant vocal style. It wasn’t the first time I’ve bigged him up, and probably won’t be the last, especially if he keeps his release schedule as full as it’s been the past few years. For today though I’m content to simply show some love to one of his homies who happens to be a pretty dope emcee in his own right.
That emcee is a Chicago-born cat named Hi Fidel who shares many of ‘Geti’s eccentricities, including his gift for off-kilter song concepts, rhyming as (or about) strange characters, and dipping in and out of different voices and rhyme styles from song to song. All these qualities, and many more, are on display on his newest LP The Company of Wolves. At times Fidel comes off startlingly similar to ‘Geti (who drops a guest-verse on the track “Patty Farmington”), spitting his raps in a slurry slow-flow and worshiping at the “weirdo alter” ruled by Rap deities with names like Doom, Del, and Keith. But his changeable cadence, (which lends itself to comparisons with the likes of various second-tier Wu-Tang-ers, Mos Def, and C-Rayz Walz, amongst others) and his tendency to spit braggadocio or address more ostensibly populist subject-matter (such as street violence and the travails of the working man) in his less abstract moments help establish him as his own man and a shining example of uniqueness in an industry where doing what everybody else is doing is often the only way to make a buck.
Don’t think Fidel did it all himself though. Technically The Company of Wolves is a collaboration with St. Louis-based producer and disc jockey DJ Crucial, who some might know as the founder of F5 Records (which released Serengeti’s Dirty Flamingo — the first place I heard both ‘Geti and Fidel back in 2003 — and Noodle Arm Whimsy albums) or from his work with MF Grimm, as “FF Express.” But that’s all subtext… And while Crucial provides a selection of diverse beats throughout, Fidel is joined over many of them by an array of guests including the aforementioned Serengeti, up-and-coming St. Louis producer/emcee Black Spade (seriously, look out for this dude on OM Records in ‘08) and Cali-based Pigeon John of the Quannum Projects posse, in addition to a couple of his close people. Guests and producers aside, The Company of Wolves is Hi Fidel’s show, and a track like “My Melody (The Sweet Sound),” which showcases him at his most straightforward over a simple head-noddable beat, strikes me as just the sort of preview that might inspire heads to buy a ticket.
Listen to “My Melody (The Sweet Sound)”
If only Hi Fidel shared Serengeti’s prolific recording itinerary, because after this I could stand to hear from dude a lot more frequently.
- El Keter
