Hieroglyphics "You Never Know"

I sincerely hope, perhaps impotently, that maybe this collection of b-sides and rarites will allow the Hieroglyphics collective---the Bay Area consortium most known for supporting Del and the Souls of Mischief during their formative (and for the Souls, their most creative and productive) years---to achieve some due recognition, outside of their rather intense online fan group (which includes this mensch). When I was but a lad devloping my tastes in all things rap, both 93 'til Infinity and I Wish My Brother George Was Here lodged themselves in my dual tape-deck boombox, and aside from the equally-great debut from the Pharcyde, were the only non-West Coast gangsta representatives to enter my 15-year old canon. Hiero rappers were smart and creative, but they never fell into the trap of being resolutely (annoyingly) positive, balancing dark and anti-social themes with outlandish and cartoonish ones. The sad thing about Hiero, though, is that despite its members frequently brilliant propensity toward dense and rewarding internal rhyme structures weaving in and out of chopped-up jazz and funk samples (courtesy of the largely unheralded Domino), they never managed to find a public spot for themselves outside of the notoriously incestuous (and v. hit-and-miss, too) Bay Area rap scene. So maybe, just maybe, Over Time can serve as a corrective for this? Don't let the "b-sides and rarities" description fool you, Hiero has an incredibly deep bench, and there's no 12th men playing here: from front to back, it's a parallel-universe greatest hits collection of what a lot of people have irresponsibly lumped with backpack-rap. Time leads off with a Domino remix of "You Never Know" (mp3), a posse cut originally from 1998's Third Eye Vision. Complete with booms-bap, wikki-wikki scratching, and a diced-up cello loop, it's the collective's old-school best with a slightly avant flair, and for those interested in such trifles, the song's title ironically reflects the group's invisibility from all but the salvage-centered discourses about rap music.

Buy Over Time from Amazon here, but beware its "EXPLICIT LYRICS."
Here's Hiero's "Home-Page."

ELSEWHERE: Be sure to stop by Mike Barthel's blog to read his incisive EMP paper, which follows the trail of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" through John Cale, Jeff Buckley, the OC, and where all good songs go to be revived, Fall Out Boy. Thankfully, at the end (spoiler alert), he moves away from the notion of "definitive" versions altogether, allowing for music to move through cultures and become infused with whatever meanings alternate interlocutors deem appropriate.