Do MCs Dream of Electric Sheep?

With the recent spate of classic '90s albums being reissued by era-defining artists such as the Beastie Boys, Pavement, Beck, and Radiohead, it should come as no surprise that Company Flow’s groundbreaking and pivotal album Funcrusher Plus is getting primped up for its 12th birthday.

The group, comprised of producer/MC El-P, MC Bigg Jus and DJ Mr. Len, released Funcrusher Plus in the summer of ’97 -- a time when underground hip hop barely registered on the mainstream's radar. DJ Shadow and the Invisible Skratch Piklz were creating some buzz, but that was about the extent of it. The trails previously blazed by A Tribe Called Quest and The Pharcyde were muddied with lesser retreads of their former glories and the popularization of basement MC battles and turntable competitions was still a few years away. It seemed multi-unit shifting, bling-centric mainstream rap was souring the identity and integrity of the genre. Thankfully, Company Flow came by to shake things up.

Taking cues from Wu-Tang Clan’s abstract New York City-as-mythical-battlefield sensibility and Kool Keith’s left-field, deranged lyrical wanderings, Company Flow expanded on these reference points with abstract science fiction themes, intricately skewed samples and striking boom-bap production. With a background of unnerving loops and beats, the group’s often haunting lyrics painted an eerie Dickensian dystopia (that’s Philip K and not Chuck D, by the way). Company Flow’s world was a strange one, indeed.

Funcrusher Plus helped spawn what could be considered a cultural renaissance in the genre: complex, challenging, and totally contradicting the watered-down pap that mainstream hip hop offered at the time (Ma$e, Warren G and, the Mom-approved Will Smith). Steeped lyrically and production wise well into the future, the album bulldozed a massive path for followers and future innovators like Cannibal Ox, RJD2, and Antipop Consortium.

Company Flow showed that hip hop could be intelligent, unorthodox, and unpredictable. To wit: while they were sampling Jodorowsky’s The Holy Mountain on the tracks “Help Wanted” and “Population Control,” Puff Daddy was scrambling for clearance to cop Matthew Wilder’s “Break My Stride.”

Sadly, Funcrusher Plus would be the only proper album that Co Flow would offer (a collection of solid instrumentals followed a few years later but was still overshadowed by its hefty predecessor). Today, El-P, Len, and Big Juss remain amicable, teasing hip hop heads with the token “never say never” reunion routine, but at this point their legacy would be best left unturned.

For now, they can be proud of the solid solo careers they’ve built for themselves and the lasting impact Funcrusher Plus has had on the greater hip hop community.