The fact that Thes and K -- who, in true old-school style, share the rap, beat-making and scratching duties -- have excused themselves from hip-hop's modern-day craftlessness certainly doesn't make them irrelevant. You need only check the old-school trappings of Missy Elliott's '02 album Under Construction, or the myriad golden-age beats that P. Diddy has lifted as a producer to measure the now generation's thirst for hip-hop tradition. PUTS bring that tradition to life by flowing smooth, simile-filled rhymes that address themes like touring, romance, city life, and just being a b-boy over chunky beats shot through with samples of chiming chords and snaky jazz guitar. When these guys lace the album-opening "Yield" with a rhyme like "Comin' out of nowhere like a dormant volcano with some hotness/So save your pop shit for the label, yo," you know they're looking to lay down some underground law.
Does all the versatility and passion that PUTS express within hip-hop's old-school structural confines make . . . Or Stay Tuned essential to your collection? Not necessarily. But with the now-commodified folk art largely tumbling in a cycle of bling-bling and blam-blam, we can do far worse than a living history lesson.
