Happy 15th Anniversary to Akrobatik’s second studio album Absolute Value, originally released February 19, 2008.
The city of Boston has birthed one of hip-hop’s best and steadiest scenes, and has yet to be really recognized for its excellence. From TDS Mob to Guru to Ed O.G. to T-Max to 7L & Esoteric to Mr. Lif to many others, Beantown has produced many artists that preserve the spirit of hip-hop’s golden age, while being highly innovative.
Jared “Akrobatik” Bridgeman, one of Boston’s most skilled wordsmiths, personifies this approach. On his sophomore full-length Absolute Value, released 15 years ago, Akrobatik puts together a project that’s highly mature while embodying hip-hop’s rugged roots.
Akrobatik had been releasing 12”s and EPs independently since the late 1990s, before hooking up with Coup D’état Records to release Balance (2003), his debut. He followed that project up by teaming with Mr. Lif to form the Perceptionists and releasing Black Dialogue (2005) through El-P’s Definitive Jux imprint. Akrobatik eventually signed with Fat Beats Records to put out Absolute Value, crediting the label for best embodying the “the raw, gritty, and underground” aesthetic of his music.
Absolute Value dropped five years after Balance, after its release was delayed for about a year. As much as I enjoy Balance, Absolute Value is the stronger album. As Akrobatik himself would say in many interviews, his emcee skills improved, he sounded more confident on the mic, and he was able to effectively experiment with his style of delivery.
Furthermore, Fat Beats proved more than willing to open its pocketbook, and helped secure him top-shelf production and an interesting roster of guests, ranging from well-respected hip-hop luminaries to old friends, to popular favorites in the “underground” scene. This combination led to Absolute Value being one of the top albums of 2008.
Throughout Absolute Value, Akrobatik flexes his ability to disperse braggadocio oriented lyrics over hard-as-nails tracks. For “Step It Up,” producer Hezekiah hooks up a beat which Ak describes in the album’s liner notes as “Phantom of the Opera meets Dancehall meets Deep Purple,” as he kicks some “Brute Force Rap” to match its energy. Ak executes a mad dash on “Ak. B Nimble,” verbally sprinting across a fast-paced beat box heavy track from the duo of Baba Israel and Yako.
The J-Zone produced title track delivers more aural chaos, as synths blare over a shuffling drum track. Ak is in the mood to brawl, using an unorthodox flow and rhyme schemes as he delivers thunderous bars. “Fuck your dreams, I'm takin' out the supreme member of this new rap dream team,” he raps. “That heat it up like kerosene / Skills previously never seen, lungs evergreen / Eight-year career still building hella steam.”
“Soul Glo,” Ak’s pairing with Da Beatminerz, is more reserved, but still funky. The renowned production team made its name by creating jazzy yet rugged grooves for the Boot Camp Clik collective and others, but they bring a different flavor to this track. The beat is appropriately soulful, yet a lot less crowded than their other endeavors, while sporting a reggae influence. The chopped sample leaves enough air for Ak to get loose, letting his “soul glow like Bruce Leroy.”
Listen to the Album:
Ak was able to secure tracks from two of the most acclaimed beat-makers of the era for Absolute Value, though one of them had passed two years prior to the album’s release. Through Fat Beats, he had access to beats by the legendary J Dilla (R.I.P.). The result is “Put Ya Stamp On It,” one of the album’s singles, where Ak teams up with Talib Kweli to drop verses over a frenetic string-sample.
Ak teams with Little Brother on “Be Prepared,” where he, Phonte, and Big Pooh describe the challenges of being independent artists over a vintage 9th Wonder heavy soul track. “Be Prepared” is one of the last songs released where all three members of Little Brother appear together. Phonte’s verse in particular stands out, as he vents his frustrations that come from years of screaming into the void. “I'm done trying to touch n****s who don’t want to be reached,” he raps. “I want to touch the youth, but here’s the fuckin truth: / I’ve played this sport and now I carry the torch / But if n****s like darkness, then what’s the fucking use?”
For all the outside assistance that Akrobatik receives, at times Absolute Value is at its strongest when the emcee works with longtime collaborators. Ak joins rhyme partner Mr. Lif and DJ/Producer Fakts One for “Beast Mode,” a blistering Perceptionists reunion. Ak’s team-ups with Lif on his own solo projects are frequently stripped-down affairs, but this one is outright menacing as well. Trading short verses over window-rattling drums and percussion, both dispense verbal carnage. “Make a left at the door if you ain't ready for the raw,” Ak declares. “Carnivore, power source that bust through armor doors / Like a battering ram, I’m shattering jams / I’m leaping in the crowd like a Packer at Lambeau.”
Jacksonville’s Willie Evans Jr. and Therapy a.k.a. the late Paten Locke (R.I.P.) each had history assisting Ak earlier in his career from the production side, but on “Black Hell Breaks Loose” both members of Asamov/The Alias Brothers shine on the mic. Therapy hooks up a beat that could be used to score a dusty 1970s Kung Fu flick, as the three emcees introduce themselves, bending their bars around the surreal groove. Therapy proves to be a dangerous “triple threat”: along with ending the song with flurry of precise scratches, he acts as MMA fighter Phil Baroni during his verse, deftly pounding opponents into submission. “I asthma attack a TASCAM,” he raps. ”Unfamiliar masked man, kill you in the black lands / Steal ’em with the backhand (whack), it separates the jaw piece / Spit then split mic wires, electrocute your audience.”
Illmind received the most credits on Absolute Value, producing four of the album’s songs. The New Jersey-based beat-smith had worked behind the boards for Ak’s most successful song, “Remind My Soul,” on Balance. Hence, it makes sense that Illmind provides the musical backdrop for some of the album’s most politically aware content. On “Rain,” Ak examines how the poor and voiceless have to face adversity in the face of a society largely indifferent and even hostile to their existence.
With “Kindred,” Ak assumes the roles of two different Black men in the most dire, perilous, and tragic circumstances imaginable, separated by at least 150 of years of history, but linked by pain and oppression. Public Enemy frontman Chuck D serves as the track’s narrator, setting the stage as Ak rhymes from the perspective of one man bound by slavery and another trapped in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina’s aftermath, each desperate to secure their family’s survival.
For Ak’s other two collaborations with ’80s and ’90s legends, Illmind put together much more aggressive tracks that are designed to invoke those golden eras. For “A To the K,” Illmind creates something that could have been lifted from a Blacksploitation soundtrack. In the album’s liner notes, Ak reveals the song was inspired by the Cypress Hill track of the same name, and he was fortunate enough to connect with B-Real through a friend in Philadelphia. The Cypress frontman delivers a hook with a similar energy he possessed on his early 1990s recordings.
“If We Can’t Build,” also produced by Illmind, features a rowdy verse and adlibs from Bumpy Knuckles a.k.a. Freddie Foxxx, one of hip-hop’s most notorious hard rocks. The song is another tribute to early ’90s hip-hop, as it invokes “The Original Way,” the album-opening track on Boogie Down Productions’ Sex & Violence (1992), which also featured Foxxx.
Ak also proves his skills in delivering heartfelt, even sentimental recordings, with the melancholy “Back Home To You.” Ak pens a letter to his girlfriend back home as he’s touring, delivering a single verse that reflects his loneliness, but resigned in knowing that he’s pursuing his dreams and making a better future for them both. Paten keeps things extremely simple, hooking up a wistful acoustic guitar loop, and again laying down scratches to end the song.
Unfortunately, Absolute Value didn’t receive the attention that it deserved when it was released, despite the efforts of everyone involved. It dropped during the post-Napster/pre-Bandcamp/pre-streaming era, when most independent acts had to really struggle to move albums. For many fans, it was often too easy to just download a project without paying for it, and Absolute Value suffered in that respect.
As far as an album that set out to recapture the feel of hip-hop’s early to mid 1990s era, few did so as well as Akrobatik’s Absolute Value. Like many Boston artists, he has yet to really get his due. Nevertheless, he continues to create music that will endure the test of time.
LISTEN: