Uhhh, YES! Serge Severe has found his calling. Not that the Portland MC had anything to be ashamed of on his previous three discs—Walk in My Shoes, Orangutan Slang and 2009's Concrete Techniques—each of which displayed fire and a growing understanding of song construction and flow: But Back On My Rhymes is a big, nasty, revivalist hip-hop record with the potential to go national very quickly.

See, college kids have simple needs: A bowl of Top Ramen, a pair of chucks, an ounce of weed—and some legitimate boom-bap in their stereo. That last need—I can't speak to Serge's cooking/shoewear/dope-peddling games—is where Severe comes in. Because Back On My Rhymes will speak to a generation put off by the vapidity of the mainstream and lost in an underground that's trying far too hard. Back On My Ryhmes makes hip-hop fun again, without sacrificing lyricism or intensity of message.

I don't know whether this new album or the recent Severe Over Premier Mixtape came first, but inspiration from Gang Starr's famed producer and DJ is pretty easy to spot on crisp tracks like this one, "Can't Stop, Won't Stop." Lyricaly, Serge and Braille (who is downright scorching here) look back on a more innocent time in their development as artists, and perhaps a purer time in hip-hop history, when the point was to get the party started and keep it rocking all night.

That doesn't mean that Severe has given up on changing the system or pouring his autobiography out through the speakers—the new disc tackles a little of everything, topically. But the beats—and Severe's slightly revised approach on the mic (if nothing else, there's a newfound emphasis on clarity of message)—are so tight and so familiar-feeling that listeners of a certain age will hear these songs with a mix of sentimentality and sheer excitement. "I hit the stage like Onyx in '93," Serge says elsewhere on the disc. And it's true—he hits the record that way, too. Look out for it, because I truly think this is the one.

Serge releases Back On My Rhymes on Friday, Feb. 18 at Ash Street Saloon. 

Links:
SergeSpace