by Charles Davis
“I get to dumping over and over again, I strike lightning”
At this place in space/ time, there is an absolute aura around Tha God Fahim. One can feel it in the air surrounding the sound waves, resting amidst the notes like a dense fog clinging to an apparent horizon. With a constant, steady flow, ciphered from the ether, there seems no slowing Fahim - he has tapped into our divine consciousness, leveeing the spring to run like a river, and crafting soundscapes in the elegantly sophisticated fashion of the forever legends.
In such understanding, it comes as no surprise this most recent effort (or, at least, most recent at the start of this piece), Six Ring Champ, stands amongst the best hip hop work of the day, and, perhaps more importantly, on an equal footing to the peaks of Fahim's past catalogue. Featuring some familiar beat-making collaborators in the always-truly-excellent Nicholas Craven, Camoflauge Monk, and Thrasherwulf, as well as Fahim himself, there is a fascinating, reaffirming, and edifying nature to the musical foundation. Recurrently including marvelous lyrical appearances from the great Your Old Droog, whose line-drive punchlines offer perfect counterpoint to the arc of Fahim and the album's greater storytelling, this overall standard of quality is not only matched by his compatriots, but continually complimented, challenged, and ultimately elevated. These are techniques which only true masters of art may achieve, and only via collaborating with other relative masters.
“We create; no time to follow trends”
From the onset, turns in the beats are surprising and intriguing, while paralleling a comfortable and palatable familiarity. Cut-to-perfection soul samples cast across the landscape generate enigmatic key changes and subtle push/pulls in tempo. These movements highlight the impeccable rhythm of the rhymes, as well the microtonality woven through Fahim's (and Droog's) varying cadences. Such depth and breath within each production allows lyrics to speak in absolute purpose, while synchronously playing the role of 'lead percussion' to the wider recording. A wonderful, multisyllabic frame is built, free from preconceived confines; choruses can come and go - bars define the parameters.
Labyrinthine schemes conjured through many, many moons of focus, study, and hard work invoke absolutely spellbinding and majestic patterns. Yet, this is no wordplay for wordplay's sake - this is storytelling. Each composition is a neoclassical magnum opus; each line is a piece of a greater puzzle - an Iliad, an Odyssey, a collection of mythology. All designed to both teach and entertain the listener. While the masses continue to consume some soulless genericism, this sits imperially adorned within the realm of underground hip-hop. When discussing Tha God Fahim, or any of his immediate audial brethren, it becomes more strikingly clear with each passing moment that they sit among the greatest of this great era, and Six Ring Champ is a testament to this well deserved status.