XLR8R

Oddball beat wizard Yea Big and animated rhymer Kid Static both call leftfield home in Chicago’s varied hip-hop scene, making their recent pairing so proper. While Yea Big’s 2006 solo debut was too disjointed for most heads, his productions here jump out of the speakers with the perfect pulse for Static’s Fat Lip-esque delivery. Withstanding the warped chaos of the instrumental “Low Budget Battle Scene,” Yea Big proves to have a firm grasp on that old boom-bap, as heard on the punchy “Speak the Facts.” And to Static’s credit, he sounds equally inspired by the offbeat productions, like the glitchy “The Life Here.” Thanks to these two, Chicago just got a whole lot more to boast about.