After speaking with Wordsworth at Cincinnati’s yearly celebration of the Hip-Hop elements, Scribble Jam, I spent eight months waiting to hear the highly promising project from his newly formed group, EMC. This album, The Show, has finally arrived and along for the ride with Words is his longtime partner-in-rhyme, Punchline, along with Stricklin, and legendary Juice Crew member, Masta Ace. Sounds great, right? Well, keep in mind the Hip-Hop “super-groups” of the past that have failed to deliver consistent and cohesive works while praying this curse does not fall upon these great emcees.

EMC collectively serves up a concept album, making it near impossible to avoid comparison to the previous Masta Ace classics, Disposable Arts and A Long Hot Summer; especially considering all of EMC made considerable contributions to these albums. The Show starts off with the piano-laced “Who We Be,” a fine introductory and biographical brush-up on the different members of the group. The album doesn’t hesitate to jump right into concept mode and it sounds as if it may stick the landing by going right into another sure shot, “Leak It Out.” In this song, EMC provides us with top-notch lyrics from all four emcees and arguably the best verse of the album, courtesy of Punchline.

Just when the album seems too good to be true, it quickly makes a wrong turn with another skit and the Yukon GMC inspired track, “Traffic,” featuring Little Brother. It isn’t the idea of the track, the Quincey Tones production, or the rhymes of Masta Ace that let me down on this one because, for the most part, they are all solid: it is the featured performance of Little Brother that bothers me. To me, there is only one other Hip-Hop artist more predictable to feature on an album than the members of Little Brother and, of course, that man shows up four tracks down the line. God damn am I tired of hearing all this Sean Price jive. Three years and ten thousand Sean Price and Little Brother featured appearances later, we are finally at the point where people need to start recognizing that featuring these cats has become cliché. Regardless of cliché status or not, I do admit “Git Sum,” the song with Sean Price, is an absolute banger.

Skip a song and another skit and you’ll land on the hard-hitting and incredibly produced Nicolay track, “E.M.C. (What it Stand For),” with scratches by DJ Eclipse. On this track EMC breaks down every possible meaning of their group name…leaving the listener to wonder which one it actually stands for—I’ll stick with Ace’s first example, “Excellent Mic Controllers,” due to the fact that they all hold it down lovely on this joint. Pass over a painful skit and you’re met by “The Grudge,” produced by the much respected Ayatollah. Wordsworth shines on this song that highlights bitter feelings resulting from troublesome relationships with family/friends throughout the lives of the EMC members.

Although the middle of the LP is a bit inconsistent, The Show ends as strongly as it started with the tracks “Winds of Change,” “Once More,” and “U Let Me Grow,” by matching the superior production of Marco Polo and Quincey Tones with some entertaining and near flawless verses from the EMC click. All in all, I would rate the album a 7.5 out of 10 due to the inconsistency factor. At times, the hooks seem a little corny and on a few tracks the production somewhat resembles a watered down version of what we heard on A Long Hot Summer Also, the album concept doesn’t really catch my attention as much as it had on the prior two Masta Ace LP’s. But even with its various soft spots, the album comes nowhere close to attaining frisbee status. So the question is; did a Hip-Hop super-group finally release an amazing album? No, however EMC’s first full-length effort is ultimately a success and most definitely worth the purchase.

Beats: 3.5
Rhymes: 3.5
Life: 3.5

-Lee Reed