Sleuthing For the Rhyme Inspector

Percee-P's catalog is way too goddamn small. He first appeared on vinyl in 1988, and didn't put out his first full-length album until 2004. And nine years later, that's still his only album. So we're starved. We're starved for his sparse but killer 12"s, and his at least reasonably bountiful supply of guest appearances. Because of this, we wind up buying records we'd never ordinarily give the time of day to by artists we don't really know or care about just because he drops a verse on them. Records like this one.

Here's a single by a guy named Koushik. He's one of those guys who you see album after album by on sites like ughh, but you don't look at because they're barely hip-hop (and holy crap are there a lot of those). Discogs lists Koushik's first album under: Electronic, Hip Hop, Rock, Breakbeat, Abstract, AND Psychedelic Rock. I didn't bother looking up the rest of his albums, because this is not Pitchfork. But I still bought this record... because Percee-P is on it.

This came out in 2006 on Now-Again Records. The label [pictured] is a million little circling eyes to tell people like me that this is not the kind of artists who makes music I would care to listen to. But fortunately the other side has proper writing on it, telling us the track-listing and the fact that this is "12" #2 of 2 from the 'Cold Heat: Heavy Funk Rarities 1968-1974' pretentious." Sorry, that last word should be "series."

Anyway, there are nine tracks on this 12" including an Intro, Interlude, Instrumental, Drumapella, Megamix, and three(!) Bonus Beats. Skip them all. The last remaining track is called "Cold Beats" and it's a full-out Percee-P song. That's right, not just a single verse, it's a proper Percee track. And instrumentally, it's pretty dope, too. It's got a nice chunky horn sample, interchanging loops and a dope, banging breakbeat. I guess that's what all that "1968-1974 Rarities" talk was about.  Hell, I'm not a guy who's big on instrumentals, but even some of the versions without Percee actually rhyming on them might actually be worth your time.

And perhaps best of all I'm... pretty sure these are not recycled verses from Percee. You know how you'd hear him drop a rare guest verse on one song, then he appears on another artist's song a year later, and it's the same verse? Well, I don't recognize any of the rhymes here from any other song. I'm almost certain this shit's exclusive.

So, it's really a whole new Percee-P song. The production's quality, plus it's a nice match for the rhyme inspector - albeit still a little out of left field for him. I'd actually rank this higher than a lot of the Madlib stuff. So add this to the list of records by artists you don't know and don't care to know that end up in your crates because of this guy. But Percee's Percee, so you'll be glad to have it.