Main Flow & 7L

Flow Season
(Brick Records : 2006)

 

It’s always exciting when DJ/emcee pairs play musical chairs. Cincinnati reared rhymester, Main Flow, has branded underground Hip Hop with some of the hardest basement boom bap since the 90s. 7L arrives at this collaboration from Boston, the city of the original tea party. He represents the DJ half of the duo 7L & Esoteric. With their powers combined, Main Flow & 7L have created Flow Season, a brainchild equipped with Main Flow multi-syllabic rhyme DNA and 7L’s methodic basslines. The question is, however, can our seasoned heroes triumph over the neglectful forces of commercialism and provide our listeners with that cutting edge Hip Hop?

Well, yes and no. Yes, with a Main Flow release, there are few effective signatures of his that one should expect. One, he stays loyal to his moniker and rewards his audience with an upgraded rhyme technique. He provides an easy of example of this involved rhyme delivery in “Hold Lines”, when he nimbly rhymes, “I’m the boss of the beats/ Shoot out your legs as you’re crossing the streets/ Shoot out your tongue as you’re flossing your teeth.”

ain Flow is a midwesterner geographically, however his delivery is distinctly New York. It’s almost as if he has a pin-up poster of Cormega in his study. Lo and behold, Flow Season’s standout track is indeed a duet that two sound-a-like emcees collaborated on called “Forever.” They both love making puns that reference professional athletes. Main Flow carries on the ritual throughout the rest of the album, making allusions to Ray Caruth and Jerome Bettis among others. “You got a girl/ I’m steel her like Jerome Bettis.”

i>Flow Season goes on boring tangents when it incorporates some of the less desirous traits of mid-90s. Though, “She Like The Way I Talk” is a humorous satire about groupies passing Main Flow for the bigger name rappers like Mos Def and Kanye West, the off key chorus is harmful to the eardrum. “Permission to Speak” uses the “insert soul singing sample here” formula, which has long since gone stale.

ll in all, Flow Season is a very stable opus. The usual heavyweights like Cormega, Esoteric, and the Grouch stop by to lend Main Flow a lyrical wrench or two. Main Flow and 7L put in all the substance necessary for a classic recipe. Unfortunately, Flow Season is the Hip-Hop classic of the 90s, and tardiness does count.