Pitch Black-a.k.a. Kamau Bakari, a champion slam poet and former Kemetic priesthood trainee-matches his verbal skills against Rob J.’s original beats on the Pitch Black Insperience, and rarely has the ghetto griot ethos been spelled out so plaintively. Bakari takes rap back to its raw, primal essence, with 20+ tracks of spoken word imagery, turf sensibility and spiritual philosophy. Resisting any temptation to bling-one song is called “Can’t Glamorize”-P. Bleezy doesn’t hesitate to dis his mama’s “slave religion” in the liner notes. Such brutal honesty on the m-i-c deserves appreciation, even if the lack of catchy hooks makes this underground classic somewhat of a sleeper, sure to spread more through word of mouth than surface-level buzz. For what it’s worth, however, Pitch Black’s talk is as real as it gets.