Ironically when people think of under rated artists they end up thinking of people such as Ras Kass and Redman. The "Catch-22" of this situation is they forget the underrated! A perfect, shinning example would be an emcee by the name of O.C.. Brought up in Brooklyn at an early age and relocating to the infamous Queensbridge, Omar Credle first appeared on the brilliant Organized Konfusion track Fudge Pudge. Thanks to front man Pharoahe Monch, O.C. sparked up a deal with Wild Pitch records and released his poetic, smooth, silky debut Word…Life. This somewhat precarious debut is significantly hard to get hold of, but the split results of production from Buckwild, Lord Finesse, DJ Ogee and Organized Konfusion is maddening. Though not as good it has to be said anyone who likes Illmatic will not feel let down by the Rakim-esque emcee himself. As O.C. offers the immortal words of ’The effort I put into it, the harder I rock’ you know that this is no half-hearted lyricist.

Creative Control simply is nothing less than jazz with a saxophone looping through tinkering keys and a driving, thumping drum loop. A xylophone handles lightly in the background as O.C. introduces the listener to the teacher of Cormega’s emceeing style; ’The slept on phenomenon, the mic be in my palm and on, many wanna hold me back, cause I'm coming on strong’.

After the quick Miles Davis driven introduction, O.C. wastes no valuable recording time delving into the first ’Classic’ on the album is the self titled Word…Life. Here a patient light symbol snaps in the background as a Lifes A Bi-ch type trumpet calls seducingly over the flicked symbol. A harsh baseline waste’s no time taking the limelight and pushing forward a pulsating nodding-head dip. Falling keys lay behind all these instruments as O.C. brings unbelievable braggadocio lyricism. This lyricism is full frontal gloating quite frankly but his delivery is sharp and his lyrics are worldly creative. The mirror of Cormega pops into my head as he delivers street-smart lyricism over the calling trumpets, ’Then I, flip the money to astound this your business, this year beat, you see, I already quizzed it. I gave it a test for the rhyme linguistics, honey wanna kiss, gotta remove the lipstick’. As you can see his lyricism is wonderfully creative in it’s word patterns but at the same time retrospective. Ones not to forget this is only the first track!

O-Zone takes on a more deeper, less jazzy production style. Buckwild (one of the most looked over producers in history) incorporates deep scratching, electric deep keys and a thudding snare; nothing is left to the imagination. Here O.C. takes deeper lyrical insights rapping multi-complex syllables a words into a role of dialect. The production booms behind him as his delivery is enhanced deeply by his manifested battle suggestions. Here the Nasty Nas we so fondly see on Illmatic is ripped out of him, compiling with venomous, self conscious words of war. Even the choral cut and scratch of Mobb Deep’s ’Your first time'll be your last earth memories’ can’t over take O.C's brilliance.

Born 2 Live sees LL Cool J snatching O.C.’s production scheme for the fortuitous song Paradise. Here O.C. gives the jingling keys and heavy slamming snare justice with O.C.’s word play being retrospective on memories and real life situations. Over the keys and clicking maracas, O.C. spicily tells tales of his "innocent" adolescent, all the games they used to play and he reminiscences in the third person as how he writes this some of them still feels alive. With passion and emotion the song moves onto death and how it tears people (especially little kids) apart. He tells the classic truth of how you appreciate someone so much more when they die; the realization of the song is shocking. ’When you take, to the streets, then you die, by the code, but in this case, who knows what went down? Bottom line is wishin that he still was around. Now he found a spot in my heart, or should I say lobotomy, Mike, know you're trapped inside of me’. This is another shining moment to O.C.’s street poetic skills and reference as an emcee as a whole.

The undeniable ’Classic’, Time’s Up hits the album like a earthquake, exploding with creative juices and production miracles. Over a hugely deep snare, scaling keys and a light guitar lick, O.C. realizes the kind of battle rap that is only released every ten years or so. Striking opponents off the list sentence by sentence, O.C. confronts the commercial side of hip hop taking no prisoners. The simplistic, dark, fallen production cuts like a serrated knife over his delivery and metaphorical paragraphs. This is the sort of song that no matter how hard you try not to like it, you just can’t. The sort of song that you end up playing at least once a week though it was made nearly ten years ago. The production is minimalist and the lyrics are complex and brilliant what more could you want?? ’Speakin in tongues, about what you did but you never done it, admit you bit it cause the next man gained platinum behind it. I find it ironic, so I researched and analyzed, most write about stuff they fantasized’. Ga Head sees O.C. taking on relationship issues over another, deep, simple, keyed and ruffed drum looped production. Much like Born 2 Live the song reeks of pain as O.C. exposes his deepest emotions, telling the tale of how his partner cheated on him. Though he uses some misogynist lyrics once or twice, the production and the rest of the song are so undeniably brilliant that I don’t really notice those few hiccups. The Queens sound tears through the speakers and his words send a tingle down your spine. If only all emcees could connect to the listener like this…

O.C. decides to let the jazz come flooding back to the album with Let It Slide. Over saxophone loops, glittering electric keys and a buzzing, falling triple drum loop O.C. talks of the people his met, or are around his area that try to act tough and disrespect him not knowing what their taking on. The appreciation for jazz instrumentals is perfectly blended with O.C's harsh, but laid back lyrical style. The instruments glaze over his joyful storytelling and light, ’Old Skool’ braggadocio. He basically ends up the bigger man saying that he knew he was better than those men anyway so he let ‘it slide’. This is another splash of O.C's active and bubbling imagination.

Story ends the album wonderfully with an infectious production besotted with dark keys and menacing drum loop. Here to add even more prestige to O.C. as a lyricist, he deals his hand a one person story telling talking of how a boy gets himself in trouble and how it relates to his family. O.C. uses hellish images to match the production and boys circumstance and really creates the most wonderful story with the keys scaling in the background. Unable to help himself O.C. takes the outro and crafts a miniature song, rapping over the zealous production of a wailing backboard, keys and a light snapped guitar pluck. Here O.C. covers the issues of life and death, friendship, hope and pride. His lyricism never once falters covering his life story and contemplation for the future. This near flawless album could not end on better pretences than one this (as I said before) miniature art form.

No matter if anyone says better this album is maybe the most overlooked masterpiece ever created. Though I tend to prefer Illmatic more I gave this album and the aforementioned album the same rating and this has more songs. Yes that’s right, I gave one song of here 4.5 Stars, just like I did with Halftime on Illmatic. Though many people (including the artists themselves) don’t realise this, basically all street wise rappers like Cormega and Mobb Deep were paved by O.C.’s unbelievable lyricism. Lets go through the list. Battle raps-amazing at them. Street poetry-may as well be the teacher. Story telling-just as good as Nas. See I think you get the picture. It’s almost as if O.C. has had the perfect lesson from Rakim on how to be a non commercial, young, Hungary genius. Yes on this album O.C. is no less than a genius. Jay-Z got it wrong with The Blueprint as with the immortal words of O.C. ’Fu-k who did I offend’, this is the architect you’ll never look back on.

Review by Aesopfable