To Whom It May Concern…

The L.A. hip-hop equivalent to the first Velvet Underground LP, the Freestyle Fellowship’s debut was similarly under-heard yet intensely influential on scores of future artists. With its deliberate disdain for L.A.’s pop and gangsta rap eras, the Fellowship’s quartet of Aceyalone, Mikah 9, P.E.A.C.E., and Self Jupiter, put on a virtuosic, Afro-futuristic display of alacritous lyricism and frenetic, jazz-inspired production, all of which still sounds ahead of its time decades later.