Aesop Rock is a walking contradiction. His demeanor and appearance in interviews and music videos are unassuming, a relaxed introvert who just wants to go home and throw on his favorite LP. The music he releases tells another story, so eccentric and complex with every line spewed by his monotone yet electric delivery carrying the world’s weight. First emerging in the late 1990s, Aesop Rock’s off-kilter style quickly found a home amongst New York City’s alternative Hip-hop scene, the city being a second home to Rock who would travel to the city frequently from his Long Island home. It was 1999 when Aesop Rock released his breakthrough Appleseed EP which garnered a large amount of critical and peer acclaim and landed Rock a deal at Mush Records which released his debut album, 2000’s Float. However, the real story starts when Aesop Rock signed with El-P’s Definitive Jux.
Some of Aesop Rock’s best releases were done with Definitive Jux, the artist-friendly independent label originally started by producer/emcee El-P. It is here Aesop Rock would record his fourth studio album Bazooka Tooth, originally released twenty years ago on September 23, 2003. Rock’s fourth album was the project that cemented his unique style as his own, allowing his loftiest concepts to manifest as mind-altering examples of poetry in motion.
Rock’s fourth outing is a creative turning point for the artist. It is his first studio album where he handled almost all of the instrumentals. His past releases were made possible by the whimsical boom-bap stylings of Blockhead, who only produced three of the album’s 15 tracks. El-P assisted with a beat and verse on “We’re Famous” and outside of that, Bazooka Tooth is Aesop Rock’s full vision coming to life. Rock’s production style matches where his writing was at the time perfectly, the lethargic and abstract nature of these instrumentals greets his down-tempo literary devices with a toothy grin. Rock’s confidence is at the center of his fourth outing, his style never fits convention and is delivered with the gusto that it will become the new norm, and he wasn’t wrong.
Bazooka Tooth has Aesop Rock at his freest. Moments like “Super Fluke” and “No Jumper Cables” epitomize the artistic mindstate of Rock twenty years ago. The minimal yet gut-punching arrangements act as a crooked canvas for the artist’s colorful vocabulary, a formula that flows throughout Rock’s discography. This formula is a malleable one as Rock twists it into sturdy structures on “Easy” and flips it into minimal novellas on “Frijoles”. Bazooka Tooth is prime Aesop Rock, by handling the production himself he was able to nurture his own vision and create an album brimming with personality and natural talent. The backing of a relaxed label mixed with his restless potential made for the perfect snapshot of a very specific era in Hip-hop, one that produced generational talent.
More recently, Aesop Rock announced Integrated Tech Solutions, the latest creation from a rap mastermind. The 18-song LP is set to be released on November 10 via Rock’s second home Rhymesayers Entertainment. This marks Rock’s first solo LP in three years and the first single, “Mindful Solutionism”, is available now.
