The Best Part

J-Live’s The Best Part deserves to have closer attention paid to its exemplary contents rather than the murky circumstances regarding its release (this album was mercilessly bootlegged before being officially released quite a few years later.) J was a working teacher before trying music professionally, and one of the hallmarks of his writing is careful word selection — nothing in these bars is an afterthought. Perhaps due to his status as one of underground hip-hop’s triple threats (he raps exceptionally well, produces beats, and DJ’s, sometimes while rapping as is the case on the show stopping “Braggin’ Writes”) there is a playfulness to this collection of songs, including more inventive structures than was the style of the heavily DJ Premier-indebted underground scene at the time.