Organized Konfusion always contained multitudes — complex abstractionists who were also master storytellers, capable of devising both impossibly intricate flows and the kinds of instant-grab hooks that demanded to be shouted en masse — and the solo debut of member Pharoahe Monch maintains that multifaceted unpredictability and adds a bit more edge to it. While there’s a moment or two where he oversteps into late ’90s edgelording (“Rape” as a gritty reboot of Common’s “I Used to Love H.E.R.” earns winces at best), he also sounds even more free to explore past his boundaries in ways that make a total mockery of the underground/mainstream divide. “Simon Says” is the epitome of this, one of the hardest rap singles recorded by anyone anywhere ever, as infamous for its hilariously base get-the-fuck-up rowdiness (“Girls, rub on your titties / yeeeeeah / Yeah I said it, rub on your titties”) as it is underrated for Monch’s ability to bring out the most preposterous qualities of every syllable he speaks (“New York City gritty committee pity the fool/That act shitty in the midst of the calm, the witty”). That song got Monch and Rawkus into hot water with the Toho film company for the uncleared Godzilla theme sample that made it sound like a 50-story flame-spitter of a track, but delete it from the tracklist and you’ve still got a ton of depth past the big single: he’s equally at home artfully promising violence alongside the Brownsville bruisers in M.O.P. (the orchestral maelstrom of “No Mercy”), pulling off the rare-from-anyone-else feat of eclipsing Busta Rhymes’ manic energy level (pasodoble freakout “The Next Shit”), and unfurling linguistically complex but emotionally direct introspective philosophy alongside Common and Talib Kweli (the astral travel of Diamond D-produced “The Truth”). And since Organized Konfusion’s breakup was an amicable one, the brief reunion with Prince Po on “God Send” puts a stunning exclamation point on the end of their legacy with one of their bleakest, angriest state-of-the-world overviews in a decade-long stretch of greatness.