Strong Island: Tha Connection

Putting out on of the strongest, most listenable, jazzy and laid back albums of last year – or maybe the last few – hasn’t given Tha Connection the slightest notion of slowing down. And while thus far into 2009, we haven’t had any new releases or sightings from the Long Island duo, a free promo of theirs dating from the beginning of last year was just posted by the dudes over at Rhyme House. And if you missed it the first time around, do yourself the favor of snaggin’ IT before it disappears – this time perhaps for good.

Tha Connection, made up of Hus Tha KingPin and SmooVth Dude, made an initial appearance on a Rawkus related release last year. And since that time have put out, counting the above disc, three releases – or nearly sixty tracks. And regardless of the genre that one may work in, that’s a great deal of music to put out. Spreading it out over, Domination Records and Goon Trax, Tha Connection has created a stunningly consistent body of work over this past year.

It’s not that the music is detached from time, but it sounds timeless. Each track is devoid of clichéd 2000 style keyboards and hyphy beats, yelling and singing. This is rap music tied to the golden age like few acts are capable of creating. Connect, which was released prior to their proper debut Trapeze, or even the Universal Dominance mix tape, gave listeners a preview of what was to come. This recording though easily trumps some of more heavily lauded rap releases from 2008.

And that in and of itself is really the manner by which to gauge the talent of this duo.

Granted, this work isn’t predicated on the notion of pushing hip hop forward. Neither have the releases from Blu – those discs have been heralded as more than worthwhile as well. But we’ll see what the year 2009 holds for Tha Connection. Considering that they’ve already worked with a label in Japan, who knows how much more than can expand? It will honestly be to the benefit of listeners to find out.