Inner City Griots wasn’t the Freestyle Fellowship’s first album – it came out roughly two years after the formation of the group and its release of To Whom It May Concern. And while it’s usually pretty easy to figure that the earliest efforts from a group represent some of its best work, this second album is generally considered stronger than that first stray shot of west coast rap. Of course, it’s all opinion, but beyond that, Freestyle Fellowship made clear that there was life on the far coast beyond Raider’s hats and Funkadelic samples (even if that was more than listenable, if not indispensible).

Collected around the Good Life health food store in Los Angeles, the Freestyle Fellowship honed their approach to music at weekly open mic nights that ended up resulting in a huge portion of the SoCal underground rappers kicking around. Part and parcel with Project Blowed (Omid, Busdriver, et all), the Freestyle Fellowship apparently included something like fifty members at one point, with the click getting paired down to the folks who showed up to perform the most frequently. There can’t be said to be a ‘leader,’ but both Aceyalone and Mykah 9 have unquestionably wound up impacting the rap game more than P.E.A.C.E. or Jupiter – the group’s other two emcees.

Disregarding what would transpire a few years on, this second effort from the group was able to reign in enough interesting source musics courtesy of deejay and producer J Sumbi to allow all involved to utilize each track in a surprising and occasionally completely unique manner. “Six Tray” might initially sound like a menacing beat that might eventually find some N.W.A. member recounting an encounter with law enforcement. Instead, the low key track, tailor made for tooling around Gotham or some similarly dark city, does speak on some seemingly west coast concerns - but Aceyalone never devolves his flow back to some thuggish dream state.

At the age of sixteen Inner City Griots doesn’t sound like a brand new disc. Some of the production – especially “Everything’s Everything” – smells a bit musty. But with the rest of the disc sporting some of the more unique approaches to holding the mic from the early ‘90s, there’s enough thoughtfulness for anyone’s enlightened taste. “Inner City Boundaries” with its jazz sample and funky drumming gives the four emcees to go in on a variety of urban concerns (read that any way that you’d like). It’s certainly a concerted effort, but even if it wasn’t, that horn sample would make it more than acceptable.

Portions of the disc – the delivery at least – might throw listeners off. But that’s exactly what Aceyalone wanted to sound like. It works more than it flounders and while these guys aren’t the west coast Wu Tang Clan, there’s almost as much myth surrounding this ‘90s group as its east coast relatives. Listeners might not always enjoy the delivery, but the message (for the most part) is something that shouldn’t really be debated. And seeing as the disc’s probably just sitting around in some record store near your place, save it and dust it off.