April 19, 2005 - For all of the research and investigation that seems to dominate the development of a well-rounded and eclectic music collection, the possibility and potential of left-field surprises cannot be overestimated; such was the case with Boston's Edan, a rapper who I discovered by chance after purchasing his Sprain Your Tapedeck EP during the summer of 2002. The disc was in many ways a goof, an old school hip-hop homage thrown together more for laughs than artistic expression, but the disc's six tracks showed promise, and I soon picked up his debut LP, Primitive Plus, along with any and all 12" singles I could find ( for the record, "Drop Some Smooth Lyrics" is the best of them).

Flash forward three years, and Edan's follow-up Beauty and The Beat finally arrives, and it's a doozy. A kaleidoscopic hip-hop odyssey that even the rapper's die-hard fans will likely be taken aback by, the record immediately joins the ranks of such left-of-center classics as Kool Keith's Dr. Octagon, Lateef and Lyrics Born's Latyrx and Paul Barman's It's Very Stimulating for its simultaneously adventurous eclecticism and fealty to essential genre underpinnings, but ultimately strikes out in a direction that shall henceforth be declared Edan's exclusive artistic province.

From the opener "Polite Meeting," an instrumental that announces his intentions to flip the script on previous iterations of the Edan sound, Beauty is a brand new beat for the Bostonite: the gritty "Funky Voltron" sounds like it came from one of those million-dollar Stones Throw rare groove compilations; "I See Colors" percolates with reverb as Edan's self-produced sound collage shuffles roughshod over verse-chorus-verse faultlines; "Fumbling Over Words That Rhyme" slurs samples over breakbeats that bubble like hot grits while Edan schools any and all competitors; and "Beauty" lives up to its name with a hodgepodge of string samples and funk beats before dropping the drums completely to allow the rapper to wreck expectations with a remarkable verse smarter than any others you'll hear this year.

"The Science of the Two," "Smile" and the "What a Wonderful World"-esque "Promised Land" conclude the album, but "Beauty" is the pinnacle of the album, and the first time in years (since my tapedeck was sprained, in fact) that I heard something on CD that truly surprised me. While the rest of rap's superstars embark on that long journey towards creative (not to mention commercial) sameness, Edan is foraging a path not only for himself, but those rare outside artists who actually want to rework their chosen medium from the outside in. Beauty and the Beat is an essential purchase for 2005, and takes an immediate spot on my 'Best Of' list for the year; any record collection should be honored to count this disc among its ranks.

Definitely Download:
1. "Fumbling Over Words That Rhyme"
2. "Beauty"
3. "Promised Land"

Overall Score 9.5