The Grouch is one of hip-hop’s greatest contemporary emcees – that you’ve never heard of. As one of the core members of the California crew The Living Legends, the Grouch is held in great reverence by the underground heads and by other underground artists, but is scarcely known “above the ground.” This is one of the downsides of being a true independent artist (the Grouch produces his own tracks as well as raps, and puts the music out himself without a label). He went from “slangin” tapes on the corner to selling CDs at shows and via the Internet on his crew’s Web site. These are the main methods of getting his music out. What he has lacked in publicity he has gained in respect by those who know of him and understand what he is attempting to do by staying independent.
Recently, after years of hustling and doing an insane amount of shows and selling as many tapes and CDs as they could, the Living Legends were able to start their own label, Legendary Music. “Crusader for Justice” is one of the first releases on their new label. (The first being the crew’s long awaited Living Legends “crew album,” “Almost Famous.”)
On his new album, the Grouch has managed to do what many artists strive to do, and that is to “one up” themselves, and to make their new album better than the last. Each Grouch album, in my opinion (which may or may not be shared by all his fans), has always been an improvement on the last.
Here on “Crusader for Justice,” Grouch has stepped up his beat production; the sound is more crisp and clear. In past albums the Grouch had used a variety of methods to make his beats. In the earlier “hella broke” days for the crew, Grouch and his counterparts used four tracks and made tapes that sounded dirty with a subtle hiss. As he progressed over the years, his production (as well as with other crewmembers) has steadily improved, as he has begun to widen his uses of ways to make beats. On “Crusader” Grouch actually put what type of equipment he has used to make his beats in the production credits for each song, showing his wide range from using the ASR-10, MP-7, to the Triton.
The rhymes on the album are another story. In that aspect of the album: it’s a mixed bag. The Grouch has a strange quality about himself when it comes to his emceeing because he has great delivery, his voice is rough, West Coast accented and very unique. This usually forces the Grouch to fall short of spectacular in his actual wording in spitting a rhyme, because it was delivered so well. Sometimes on “Crusader,” the Grouch spits rhymes that if another emcee had done the same thing, it may not have worked. That is a testament to one of his talents, as some fans say, no one can rock a Grouch beat like Grouch himself.
That isn’t to say that the Grouch doesn’t shine lyrically on this album, because he does on several tracks. For instance, the first track “Crumble Your Tower” and the title track “Crusader For Justice” both come hard lyrically as well as smoothly over dope fluid West Coast flavored beats. Where the Grouch falls short on the album (songs like “Cloud 9,” and the ode to the love of his life, “Dragonfly”), he makes up for on following tracks like “Clean Nikes,” which is more of an introspective look at his life. On this track the Grouch acknowledges his mistakes and things that he has taken for granted in his life. He equates the situation to having a new clean pair of Nikes, and how in the beginning you take good care of them but later on take them for granted and let them fall into waste.
“Some People” provide the listener with another song with deep feeling and an underlying message, as the Grouch relates to the listener about how everyone deals with life differently and how “some people get better with time, and some people have a hard time. Some people they age like wine and other people they can’t find themselves.” On “Crusader” it seems that the Grouch wanted to get a lot more personal. Before its release, he had been talking about how he never wanted to make another song that didn’t have any real meaning. This means that he wanted to separate himself from the “battle rhyme” orientated songs that he had done from time to time in the past.
That isn’t to say that he has totally abandoned that style, because even though that may have been his direction and most of the album is in that vein, the Grouch still has a few fired up “battle like songs.” This is shown in “Juxtaposed,” with guest Eye Cue from Hobo Junction, which has a hard beat complemented with scratches by DJ Drez. Grouch and Eye Cue just trade verses talking about their crews and how dope they are, the basic emcee ego trip. There is also another collaboration track with fellow Living Legends crewmember Bicasso and with Zion from Zion I. The track is called “Moves That Make Me” and boasts one of the best beats I have ever heard the Grouch drop, and all three emcees just rip it up (especially Zion).
There is also one lone track on the album that isn’t produced by the Grouch, and that is “Better Than You”, which is produced by fellow crewmember Eligh (who is known for his sick beats). As would be expected, Eligh comes with yet another excellent beat, a hypnotic xylophone-sounding beat with a bass heavy back and high hat claps. Contrary to what the title may make one think, this track is actually a song telling the listener to be confident in themselves with a chorus saying “nobody is better than you/and nobody’s better than me/not even you when I’m telling the truth/How can it be? You asked the question/say it to yourself and believe in it, listen.” The new and positive Grouch can be refreshing at times considering his past work fit well with his name, because it was riddled with pessimism.
To cap off his album the Grouch takes us on a trip into his soul on “More Than Meets The Eye”, a sad but hopeful song about his recently deceased father. The Grouch, in this song is actually conversing directly to his father, calling it a song for the journey to the next. The Grouch struggles to put things into words as he tells that “beings like this don’t die, don’t ask me where they go though/I just know there is more than meets the eye.” Not knowing what happens after this life, Grouch explains that he feels that somewhere he knows his father’s energy lives on. As the strange guitar riff plays out its last chord, I realized that not only is this the Grouch best sounding album, but it was also one of his deepest, because it was honest.
The Grouch was true to himself and by doing so, opened his soul to the listener which allows a better feeling of what he is trying to illustrate, as long as your willing to go along with him. There is room for improvement, but at the pace that the Living Legends are releasing music, I doubt that this will be the last we hear from the Grouch. I enjoyed this album, and look forward to what is in store.
