onemanarmy x Michigan Hip Hop History

There are some rap albums that wind up changing people’s lives. Pete Rock and C.L. Smooth’s Mecca and the Soul Brother needs to be included in that list. As does De La Soul’s Three Feet High and Rising. It might be nothing but hyperbole to mention Masters of the Universe (also released as Waterworld, but that was prior to the disc’s reissue with better distribution) from Michigan based duo Binary Star (Senim Silla and onemanarmy).

The group didn’t really have a chance from the get go, seeing as it was hell bent on ripping up anyone who group members perceived to be sell outs or exploitative of the genre – look out Diddy. Regardless of its lyrical bent, Masters of the Universe is so well put together, flows so immaculately from track to track and is backed by some of the most buoyant production this side of A Tribe Called Quest as to necessitate its inclusion in that list of important discs.

For whatever reason – and perhaps because of the group’s inability to break through to even underground supporters – Binary Star only released that lone album around the time that we all arrived in the new millennium.

Subsequent to the dissolution of the group, onemanarmy, who has since become One Be Lo, went on to record as a solo act. Over the past six years he’s released a handful of small run, but conceptually dense albums.

His first effort, 2003’s Project F.E.T.U.S., sounds like a direct descendant of Binary Star’s lone long player. It makes sense, of course, that onemanarmy carries on where his former group left off. At the time that all of this was going on, though, another Michigan native was gaining some attention for his production. And while J-Dilla didn’t (somehow) ever have anything to do with this particular rap contingent, the results of the theoretical collaboration is staggering.

Magestik Legend winds up guesting on a few tracks. The horn heavy “Fast Food (Remix)” is one of the more entertaining of the tracks offered up here. And during the song’s duration, as the two emcees go in on the chorus together and trade dense bars of lyrics, the solo status of the headliner here should be lamented. As powerful a voice as onemanarmy is and remains today, his ability to work in concert with other rappers yields results that surpass any imagined highlights.

Included on Project F.E.T.U.S., alongside the originals, are a few reworked Binary Star tracks. “Waterworld” arrives markedly different than its original from three years prior. The beat may have been updated a bit, but not too much as to obscure the tracks initial grandeur.

The disc’s penultimate offering, a re-imagined “One Man Army,” is rendered almost unrecognizable. The beat here, as with the original, is still all menacing bass and jazzy keys, but there’s something darker. But in this particular track, onemanarmy’s career can be figured.

After getting wrangled by the law, making it out, releasing an unheralded rap classic and heading out on a solo career that doesn’t seem to be yielding up the type of recognition he deserves, this emcee is going to relate his mood through music. Cop it well…