Review Summary: I represent the underground, that's where I get busy.
Ellay Khule, aka Rifleman, is an underground, Los Angeles based, emcee. Having rapped since 1988, and with over twenty solo albums, Khule is a veteran emcee who has mastered his craft. His raps are stylistically diverse and lyrically consistent; he would best be described as combining the meaning of 2pac and the perfect delivery of Kendrick Lamar. What is even more impressive is that on his recent album
Holy Scriptures, Khule finds a way to make his production as impressive as his flawless raps.
Holy Scriptures is an underground masterpiece. It features fifteen tracks of pure hip hop that are all cleverly-conceived, each track with a message of its own. I discovered Ellay Khule after hearing him rap on Eligh’s track “A Different Way” and was blown away by his combination of clever rhyming, a substantial message and a perfect, aggressive, flow. I was pleasantly surprised to find that he was able to succeed with this formula for an entire album.
The lyrics on
Holy Scriptures are thought provoking, meaningful, down to earth, mature, clever and feature a plethora of witty rhymes. Khule is quick to point out that life isn’t something that will be handed to you, and is critical of people making excuses for their bad situations in life. Yet while he has a lot to say, he is able to come across as motivational rather than preachy. His style has a unique prose that overloads the listeners brain with imagery: “The sun shines every time the moon fail/ but I’m a G, and I got more stripes than a racoon’s tail.” Every single line on this album features clever rhyming that is similar in quality to legendary rhymers like MF DOOM (who has produced a number of tracks for Khule in the past).
The sound of this album is reminiscent of hardcore 90s hip hop production, but is also fresh and innovative. The production is jazzy, but also hardcore, something like De La Soul. It is rarely inconsistent and never bad or boring. Each beat has its own role to play, sometimes being the focus of the song, and sometimes being secondary. The beat on the track “Still Coming Up” is an electronic multi-layered masterpiece. The beat is perfectly synchronized with the lyrics, both in timing and volume. Combine all of this with the flow of Ellay Khule and featured artist The Riddlore?, and the result is an obvious masterpiece. Khule kills the track as usual, but The Riddlore? comes in with a brilliant verse that is reminiscent of AZ’s feature on Nas’ Illmatic. Using an extreme overemphasis on his rhymes, The Riddlore? crafts an impeccable flow and is able to drop a sixteen bar verse with brilliant rhymes on every beat:
“I come from a coast where
bangin is the number one
occupation
but that’s not my
operation I gave it up for rockin’
stages
when I rock you sway with the *** I’m saying like
it’s contagious
why would I go back to the block with rocks and
gages
where niggas get shot, or knocked and locked in
cages
for
wages , the casualty count is
outrageous”
The beats in general, created by Ellay Khule himself, are outstanding. By effortlessly switching between low and high tempos, Khule is able to achieve stimulating beats that also have an aura of tranquility. Tracks like “The Leader” alternate between low bass lines and periodic keyboard notes. Khule does a perfect job of combining clever lyricism and a smooth flow, to make this an immensely enjoyable and relaxing track. “A Clear Thought” is perhaps the best track on the album, it uses a flute and an electric guitar to masterfully alternate between a low and high tempo between the hook and verses. Khule's flow on these beats comes across as immaculate. Always keeping his buttery rhymes on pace, so that the periodic keyboard notes strike right after each of his rhymes.
A huge number of rap albums feature solid raps and beats, but what makes this album flawless overall is the excellent hooks. "A Clear Thought" shows this, but the best example is “Go Gettas” where Khule emphatically repeats the following phrase four times “Theres a whole world out there, you gotta go get it, what every you wanna do, homeboy im wit it.” The rapid pace at which he sings the course, the emphasis on his voice, and the sheer repetition of the phrase combine to create a very motivational track. It’s as if he is repeating this phrase so that it sticks on your mind, egging you on, becoming more meaningful with every repetition.
In short, this album is underground gold and has few downfalls. The only significant flaw in this album is it starts a little slow, with the early tracks “Califormula” and “On My Way” being the weakest on the album. This makes this album slightly inaccessible at first, but after hearing this album daily for almost two months, it has gotten better with every single listen and is becoming close to a classic in my mind.
Holy Scriptures is an album by a veteran emcee that finds a way to make a fun record that is also enlightening and introspective a good amount of the time. He does this without coming off as preachy, without sacrificing the sound of his music, and without neglecting the quality of his delivery. People tend to take for granted what they have, while constantly focusing on the negative aspects of life, especially in massive fast-paced cities like LA. Music like this helps the listener acknowledge the bad aspects of life and learn to grow from them, while never forgetting that life is all about having fun.
