When people say a rapper sounds like the future, it can mean a few different things. It can be “this dude will be the literal face of the genre” (see 50 Cent’s 50 Cent Is The Future). It can be “this dude is doing things that are going to fundamentally change how rap music sounds” (see Nayvadius Wilburn, aka Future). Or it can mean the literal, temporal future, in that it evokes Blade Runner or The Matrix or the William Gibson creative universe. When people said The Cold Vein, the 2001 debut album from the Harlem duo Cannibal Ox, sounded like the future, they meant all three.
The late ‘90s were a pretty good time to be an underground rapper. Napster and MP3 sharing were loosening the major labels’ stranglehold on music distribution, while internet message boards were building scenes that transcended geography. Labels like Rhymesayers, Anticon, Solesides, and others were on their way toward moving serious units, getting actual radio play, and doing numbers on tour. This is a very long story, but Rawkus was the first and arguably most successful of these labels. With the backing of James Murdoch, they would propel Mos Def and Talib Kweli out of the underground and into the mainstream.
Things did not go so well for other Rawkus artists, including El-P. He signed with the label in 1997-ish as part of Company Flow, the boundary-pushing trio of him, Big Juss, and Mr. Len. The first full-length Rawkus release was CoFlow’s Funcrusher Plus. It was a beefed-up version of the group’s 1995 self-released Funcrusher EP, whose album art somewhat ominously featured the slogan “INDEPENDENT AS FUCK.” But whatever El-P was expecting from an independent rap label, he did not get from Rawkus. He would later rap that he would rather “be mouth-fucked by Nazis unconscious” than work with Rawkus again.
After wriggling out of his deal, El-P started Def Jux, his own label. The first release was two singles packaged together. One record was the official last few songs from Company Flow, a confirmation that the group was (amicably) disbanding. The other was “Iron Galaxy” b/w “Straight Off The D.I.C.,” the lead single from Cannibal Ox, the duo comprised of Vast Aire and Vordul Mega, from New York’s sprawling Atoms Family crew. Their LP would be El’s first project as an auteur executing his vision with complete creative control, on his own label. And that made it the most anticipated album in—or: the future of—this rapidly growing part of the rap landscape.
It’s hard to think of an act whose first song summed up their entire value proposition as well as Can Ox was encapsulated in “Iron Galaxy.” Vordul delivers a series of ephemeral images that flip between shit-talking and world-building. He starts his verse proclaiming “Life’s ill,” which would become the duo’s de facto mantra, and closes with what is probably his most quoted line (“Fuck five, I want 108 mics”). Vast raps more intentionally, coherently, introducing motifs that will be further explored across the full album (“A pigeon can’t drop shit if it never flew”). Together they render a Harlem full of poverty, misery, humanity, and strength, in which they happen to be a couple of rapping superheroes. It is a few stops on the train from Manhattan proper, but might as well be on the moon. It is definitely in outer space. Why else would El-P’s beat sound like it does?