Record Label: Koch/Latchkey
Featured Artists: DJ Premier, Marley Marl, Domingo, MoSS, Frank Dukes, Critical Child,Haylie Duff

If you talk to any basketball player currently in the NBA, 10 times out of 10 they’ll cite Michael Jordan as their inspiration while they were coming up. Now if you take that same scenario and replace the ‘ballers with MCs, (especially those from New York) then 100% of time Nathaniel Wilson will roll of their tongue as a source of inspiration, content, motivation, and longevity.

If you have no idea on whom Nathaniel Wilson is; then here’s a couple of clues to help you along. Clue#1: He’s the reason why Russell Simmons passed on signing Nas to Def Jam early on in Nas’ career, because Russell thought that Nas sounded too similar.

Clue#2: Black Thought of The Roots does a solid impression of him (lyrical and voice-wise) on “Boom!” from their album The Tipping Point.

Clue#3: On "Encore," Jay-Z mentions that hearing [him] rap is like hearing [this] certain individual in his prime.

And Clue#4: He’s probably the only person that didn’t let anything like his lisp get in the way of him one being one of the biggest lyricists’ in Hip-Hop history. If you’re still having a hard time figuring it out, (and if you are, you should be a shamed of yourself), all the clues spell-out none other than Kool G. Rap.

The legendary Queens MC and member of the famed Juice Crew returns with his fifth solo album, Half A Klip. The record starts off with the soulful sounds of “Risin’ Up” and G Rap’s patented street tales; “You wanna underrate G, y’all people got some nerve/I was raised in the gutter/you was shelved in the suburbs/age of 15 kid, I’m destined to drug serve/moms was a nurses aid, step pop a janitor/rim-ride sh*t, drive the soda came from Canada/Salvation Army gear, clothes from a canister/munchin’ on a fried bologna sandwich by the banister/welfare cheese up in the fridge/no heat freezing in the crib/nappy-hair peezin’ on the kid/moms putting season on the pig.”

“Turn It Out” just reinforces the same gritty talk that basically everybody in the game has now adopted; “Throw my drink in a chick’s face that act all whack/ladies will ya attitude, get back on track.” G Rap proves that his verbal capabilities haven’t escaped him, as he opts not to go with big-named guest appearances while proving his presence in Hip-Hop is still felt.

Juice Crew member Marly Marl lends his Midas touch on “With A Bullet,” and resurrects a sound that hasn’t been heard since the late 80’s.

“On The Rise Again” features the innovator of scratch-in hooks, DJ Premier. The song is one of the most stand out tracks on the album and not because it’s blessed with the expertise of Premier, but because it features an unlikely collaboration with teenie-bopper queen, Haylie Duff. With either Hillary Clinton or Barak Obama on the verge of being the next leader of the free world, an alliance between one of the hardest MCs in the business and a fan favorite of The Disney Channel was inevitable, right?

In any case, a song like that shows that G Rap is one of the true architects of musicianship, being able to blend his sound with that of an artist who was only 4-years-old when he released his first record. Songs like “100 Rounds,” “The Life,” and “What’s More Realer Than That?” just add to a catalog of lyricism that is already timeless, with production that complements him perfectly. One of the smartest things G Rap did with this project was that he didn’t over-exert himself, (11 songs with 2 being remixes/clean versions, so 9 songs in actuality) proving that less is more, even for a Hip-Hop heavyweight such as the Kool Genius of Rap.