In 1997, Company Flow released an LP unlike anything heard at the time:
Funcrusher Plus. Bigg Jus, Mr. Len, and El-P spent three years putting together this final product and the result still sounds as fresh and as innovative as it did 12 years ago. Although this was the only official LP, it was used as a springboard to launch the career of El-P. His beats became comparable to RZA and Dre before him, not in the sense of commercial appeal but more in the sense that they were so original that they could have been produced by no one else. From there he went on to produce another classic album (Cannibal Ox's
The Cold Vein) as well as lend his talents to other artists all the while producing his own albums and starting a record label (Definite Jux). But throughout his still stellar and ongoing career it was this, the first Company Flow album (re-issued by Definitive Jux just the other month), which defined an artist and proved that underground hip hop is as innovative, if not more so, than its mainstream counterpart.
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