First Born

Michael Larsen shocked the hip-hop world as a teenager from St. Paul, Minnesota who dominated the late ’90s/Y2K-era battle-rap circuit before he could legally drink — but he’d wind up having to shock it again when it came time to cut his debut album alongside producer/turntablist DJ Abilities. And the thing that made First Born so striking was that it showed Eyedea as someone impossibly wise beyond his years, as though he’d gotten all the punchline-driven shit-talk out of his system and was ready to examine the deeper workings of the conscious mind. First Born is one of those indie rap records that draws from a core of bohemianism, anti-authoritarian philosophy, and a sort of Zen-koan approach to rewiring your own perspective, an approach that puts him just as close to the poets of the Beat Generation as it did the combatants of Scribble Jam. And while there’s a timbre to his voice that makes his moments of acrobatic flow and motormouthed intensity feel like interesting means in themselves — opener “One” even takes a first-verse gambit on burying his voice in the drum-heavy mix to the precipice of incoherence — it’s because he knows how much power his words actually have. And while he’s a hell of a force in the classic rapper-shows-he’s-good-at-rapping material — check out the destroy-all-comers agenda of “Blindly Firing,” which opens on the hilariously matter-of-fact couplet “What’s your definition of dope?/’Cause I think our opinions differ” — it’s the heavy stuff he’ll be remembered for. If there’s a definitive centerpiece, it’s the two-part “The Dive,” an incredible depiction of teen-years existentialism and mental health that makes your average emo anthem seem like a “what can ya do” shrug in comparison. And it hits home hard when he stops to acknowledge that one of the things that keeps him together is the sense of purpose and identity that his art gives him, as relayed in cuts like “Music Music” and “Color My World Mine.” Abilities’ production leans contemplative, frequently sinking into the more atonal or distorted side of underground hip-hop; even familiar components like the jazz piano loop of “Void (Internal Theory)” seems more intent on building unresolved tension than keeping a system bumping. (Then he reminds you he can do unholy things on the ones and twos on a scratch-routine jam like “Well Being”.) First Born is a powerful dispatch from someone who had a deeper perspective at 19 than most people have at twice that age, ensuring a crucial legacy for someone who tragically never made it as long in life as the PTSD-nursing 40-something Nam vet he finds an emotional connection to on “A Murder of Memories” — there’s a lot of pain on this album, and it’s rarely an easy listen, but always an emotionally devastating one.