Power In Numbers

It may have been due to the jaunty nature of their breakthrough ‘Concrete Schoolyard’, but Jurassic 5 have been rather unfairly cast as comic crown prince heirs to De La Soul’s D.A.I.S.Y. Age crown, a definition that – as second album Power In Numbers proves – doesn’t tell the whole story.

Nor does the perenial old skool tag, for this is as fresh and invigorating a hip-hop record as you will hear all year. Make no mistake, however, that the Jurassic 5 six are working firmly to their own agenda, distilling elements from rap’s history (their line up is the firmly traditional two DJs and four mcs) and taking them to new and exciting places. Sure the menacing air of wannabe gangsters is absent, but it’s replaced with an equally firm belief that the positive can also be hard hitting. 'Thin Line' perhaps demonstrates best their way of thinking – an infectious Nelly Furtado-assisted track that muses on the subject of platonic relationships bewteen the sexes. A tale of bitches and ho's it is not.

Others may be raking in the hip-hop bucks these days, but it's Jurassic 5 who are the true keepers of the flame.