Word…Life

Omar Credle might probably better known as part of the collective Diggin’ in the Crates Crew, member of the Clockers-era Mk II version of rap supergroup Crooklyn Dodgers, and a strong guest-verse collaborator than as a breakout solo artist — or at least he would be if he wasn’t responsible for one of the most stunning underground hip-hop anthems of the ’90s. “Time’s Up” and its smooth-swinging/heavy-hitting atmosphere gave O.C. a shot at lyrical immortality that he rose up to spectacularly — two verses, no hooks, and three-and-a-half minutes embodying everything exciting about lyrical East Coast hip-hop from the complex (this is a track that gets people geeked off the opening line “You lack the minerals and vitamins, irons and the niacin”) to the direct (“the more emotion I put into it, the harder I rock”). It’s the only track off his debut Word…Life that wasn’t on the initial demo, but while it’s the obvious standout, O.C.’s whole repertoire on this album reflects that same smart-but-unpretentious strain of MCing in a few different refracted modes — finding the universal wistfulness in deeply specific personal childhood nostalgia (“Born 2 Live”), struggling with his volatile emotions after his girlfriend leaves him for another woman (“Ga Head”), and resenting the fact that a clean record can’t insulate him from the cops’ inescapable racial profiling (“Constables”). And while it’s not hard to sound like a worldbeater when you’ve got ’94 Buckwild, Lord Finesse, and Organized Konfusion providing the beats, O.C.’s upfront, propulsively relentless delivery makes it feel like the lyric sheet should be riddled with exclamation points.