Large Professor - Professor @ Large

Anyone with any sense of perspective on hip-hip knows that the scene today is chock full of straight digital trash. Now that anyone with access to a laptop can throw some shitty rhymes over tired loops and call themselves a rapper, we have a biblical plague of overly tattooed nobodies of tomorrow terrorizing our ears and trying to either be Wayne or Jay. The strongest stuff over the last year has been from the old heads: KRS-One, Bumpy Knuckles, even Nas if you count all the ghostwriting he's been paying the bills with.

Large Pro has been in the game since the 80s, initially rocking pause tape that got him production gigs for Eric B & Rakim at 17. Two decade plus later, he's a bona fide legend: having rocked with Main Source and rhymed and produced a million more tracks since. The uninitiated should check this amazing retrospective put together by the good folk of Complex.

On the solo tip,  Professor @ Large is only X-P's fourth release and while they may come few and far between, #4 is worth the wait. After a perhaps too up-tempo a start, things settle down into the pocket for what may be the best hip-hop album we've got this year. Large Pro holds his own on the solo tracks like the title track and Live Again, but the guest appearances on Professor @ Large are totally bananas. Queens gets much love for the duration, and its residents represent on Focused Up with Tragedy and Cormega alongside an off the hook track with Mic Geronimo and Grand Daddy IU. Straight from Golden finds XP rocking kind of a Bun B/G Rap flow before Busta bum rushes the proceedings with his late period Jamaican auctioneer flow. Brooklyn is repped by Fam and MOP on Happy Days R Here, sporting a less frantic than usual flow that is still hard as fuck and we even get the recorded debut of the new Large Pro curated project MARS featuring Mega, Action Bronson, Roc Marciano and Saigon. Not too shabby for an old head that is still South of 40. Get Professor @ Large with the quickness here from your boys at Fat Beats.

R

The Stupendous Adventures of Marco Polo!

Marco Polo has been maximizing his Stateside potential, dropping his Port Authority and Newport Authority mix cds, as well as collabos with Torae and Rustee Juxx on Duck Down. All four are must-owns for anyone who enjoys real hip-hop. It's kind of baffling that it takes a guy from Toronto to bring it to US ears, but release number five for Marco Polo is yet another great comp.

The Stupendous Adventures Of Marco Polo collects a bunch of material that fell by the wayside from other projects due to deadlines ands whatnot, combined with some rare MP remix stuff. Great tracks from a bunch of new artists like Skyzoo and Red Clay rub shoulders with old head favorites like Large Professor and Grand Daddy I.U. Even Skoob from Das EFX weighs in with a great track here. Can't say I saw that eventuality transpiring when I picked this up, but you're not going to catch me arguing either. I don't want to have to track that Rick Ross record down until I get really desperate. In the meantime, join me in avoiding that eventuality and grab a copy of The Stupendous Adventures Of Marco Polo here and look for Marco Polo on the road worldwide, repping for real hip-hop.

R