UG Rap Community

Iron Mic Coalition: a local answer to the Wu-Tang Clan.
CHRIS HERRINGTON | 3/11/2005

The 1st Edition

Iron Mic Coalition


(IMC Music)


Combining eight MCs, three producers, and one DJ among nine members who also perform solo or in smaller configurations, the hip-hop Iron Mic Coalition comes on as something of a local answer to classic mid-1990s New York collective the Wu-Tang Clan. And though this group's debut album obviously isn't the hip-hop classic that Enter the Wu-Tang: 36 Chambers was, the connection runs deeper than mere numbers: The 1st Edition evokes Enter the Wu-Tang with an imperfect sound quality that perhaps accidentally enhances its grimy, DIY feel and with varied lyrical content that feels far more real than the dual paths of conspicuous consumption and violent menace that dominate the mainstream or the self-consciousness that dominates so much indie-rap.


This doesn't mean that The 1st Edition skimps on the beats-and-rhymes basics. Despite the imperfect sound, there's some sharp production here: Check out the way producer Fathom 9's Billie Holiday sample on "Crown" spars with DJ Capital A's scratched KRS-ONE hook. And, amazingly, all eight MCs have distinct sonic personalities: scratchy and conversational (Jason Harris), rough and unhinged (Duke), baritone and smooth (Milk), nimble and precise (Mighty Quinn), nasal and laid-back (Daralic), strident and unpredictable (Empee), low and hazy (Mac), clear and verbose (Fathom 9).


Lyrically, there are plenty of choice battle rhymes: Daralic's "I'm dispensing sucker MC ethnic cleansing" to Jason Harris' "Some MCs is like Laker power forwards, you heard me?/They may be good but they just ain't Worthy" to Quinn's "No optometrist could have seen our coming dominance."


But it's the content that makes The 1st Edition such a durable, compelling listen: the swaggering self-awareness of "Empee's Lament," the bait-and-switch of "Eat Some Chicken," where Mac's lovably literal opening verse skirts stereotypes and Quinn's more metaphorical response rubs your face in them, and, perhaps most of all, the expansive but measured local color of "901 Area Code," best embodied by a Daralic verse that paints a bleak picture of "Gangland feuds and thrown-away .22s/Three-o'clock roadblock, time for curfew/The children are growing up gone berserk too" before letting the sunshine in with "But that's one aspect/Here's another/Those fly girls raised on cornbread and butter."


--Chris Herrington


Grade: A-

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