D-Sisive — The Book

Back in the early part of the century, D-Sisive created a lot of buzz for himself with tracks on other people's albums in which he seemed to spend a fair amount of time bragging about his rapping skills. With The Book, his first official release, he's finally putting his money where his mouth was all those years ago. The album begins with "Intro (The Story Of An Artist)," which is part Daniel Johnston cover, part ponderous artistic manifesto, The disc quickly jumps into "Brian Wilson," an arresting exploration of the MC's personal struggles, family tragedies and artistic paralysis, and barely lets up from there. The rest of the album (save for the brilliant wigger evisceration "ThisIsWhatItSoundsLikeWhenWhiteboysListenToHipHop") continues to deal with these themes in such a raw and brutally honest way that it's at times hard to listen to, but even harder to turn off. The Book is such a compelling piece of music that it finally justifies every claim D-Sisive made in the budding stages of his career. He really is that damn good.