If I said Rugged sounds like a prototypical New York emcee, you might read that as “average” or “nothing special,” which is not at all what I’m trying to imply. “Okay me, what I need me to do in this scene is…” Perhaps that justifies the whole “Split Personality” gimmick. I always wonder how that works in practice.

On “Split Personality” Rugged shows his versatility by acting as his own director too. Anyway as for this album RNR produced everything except for “Bottom of the Barrel” and “Judge Free Zone,” which were produced by DJ Static and I.mpaq respectively. If I had unlimited time and unlimited funding I would still only be able to review a third of what comes across my desk. Life’s funny though and you can’t always get to everything you want to no matter how highly recommended they might be. So yeah that’s a late pass on my part given one of our own staffers was bigging him up back then. He hails from New York but now lives in Boston, he’s a die hard Buffalo Bills fan, and he once made a “best albums of the year” editorial on this very website back in 2008.

Looking through the other side of the screen I picture an incredulous reader saying “Da’fuq Flash, seriously? How are you gonna do me like that?”Īs it turns out though I think Rugged N Raw justifies the pain for both you and me though, so as I try to slip the bonds behind my back I’m going to give you the brief biographical info I’ve been able to glean about the emcee. I’m basically going in with one arm tied behind my back, typing and reviewing one-handed and still trying to give you something to get down with. Furthermore I’m going to frustrate many of you who might want to check out this album because it’s an ADVANCE COPY, which means the number of clips I can share from it is severely limited, and I can’t even tell you when to cop it in stores. I’m taking a bit of a shot in the dark on this one since I’ve not heard “Anomaly Book 1” and only know of Rugged N Raw by reputation from a fellow hip-hop writer who urged me to check this one out.

Book of dead not on gamstop