For years, there was an industry adage that Hip-Hop was a young person’s game. While labels may forever seek teenage and early twenty-something talent, the 2010s more than put that notion to bed. More than ever, Hip-Hop Heads showed that balance was needed when it came to perspective. At a time when new artists flooded the market and advanced the sounds and trends of Rap, key artists took their music to new places. A forty-something MC no longer needed nostalgia to stay relevant. JAY-Z’s 4:44 may have been the colorful pace-car of the revelation, but plenty of elite Hip-Hop artists were writing new chapters in legacies long thought to be dried cement.
Royce 5’9 is one such artist. Twenty years after he was one of the most exciting MCs approaching Y2K, Ryan Montgomery proved that his artistic clock was reset in the best possible way. Although 2016’s Layers was a cut above, 2018 illustrated Nickel Nine’s incredible prowess. Royce and longtime collaborator DJ Premier delivered PRhyme 2—filled with intricate wordplay, punchlines, and the kind of chemistry that “Boom” and “Hip Hop” fans dreamed about for decades. Weeks after, 5’9 gave us The Book Of Ryan, his benchmark LP. The music went new places, the gates to vulnerability opened up in new ways, and an artist who was so good at mood music brought a spectrum of emotions under one theme.
In the nearly two years since Ryan, Royce challenged himself in a new way. He made his Heaven Studios into a home. Tucked away in the night, Royce soaked up some game from Mr. Porter and DJ Premier, and the MC began making beats. Those beats organically led Royce to a multi-faceted message. While Heads heard a fervent sermon at the top of 2019 with “Field Negro,” last fall’s “Black Savage” became the first peek at The Allegory. Royce was taking perception and terminology from behind the curtains of American culture, and dressing it up as Black Excellence, alongside T.I., CyHi The Prynce, Sy Ari Da Kid, and White Gold.
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