Last week, Felt dropped their surprise album, Felt 4 U on all daily streaming platforms. If you don’t know who Felt is, they’re a duo that consists of two emcees named Slug from Minneapolis, MN and Murs from Los Angeles, CA. For each Felt album, they collaborate with one producer who provides the beats for the entire project. This is Felt’s 4th album together and their first in 11 years so this drop out of nowhere is big for underground hip hop fans like myself. Slug and Murs are OG’s in the independent hip hop game going all the way back to the mid/late 90’s. They emerged at a time when mainstream rap had gone jiggy after the deaths of Pac and Biggie. For hardcore fans of good lyrics and boom bap beats like me, I was in pursuit of finding the next thing in rap and lucky for me, there was an abundance of good hip hop out there. You just had to work a bit to find it because it wasn’t on retail shelves.
Ant + Murs + Slug = Felt 4
While I was a big hip hop fan since the age of 8 or 9 out on the West Coast, I really found my music groove in high school when I started to go to live shows and hang with other kids like me. I had a solid group of hip hop heads at my school that like to trade tapes between classes and we always talked about what new songs and albums had just recently dropped. In the late 90’s, I started to shift from the gangster rap I loved for years and really gravitated to the hip hop movement coming out of California. These Cali hip hop artists included The Pharcyde, Lootpack, Blackalicious, Latyrx, Freestyle Fellowship, Abstract Tribe Unique, The People Under the Stairs, Hieroglyphics, Jurassic 5, Emanon, Rasco, Planet Asia, Dilated Peoples, and many more that I’m forgetting. Another group out of the west coast in the mid/late 90’s were the Living Legends who were so dope! If unfamiliar with the Legends, I talked about them here. Murs was a part of the Living Legends crew and while he was dope with the Legends, I felt he really found his calling as a solo artist. Murs has been out here hustling as a solo artist and mostly independent for over 20 years strong and has stayed consistently fresh for the entire span. Not many in the game can say this…. Murs can.
In the fall of ‘98, I packed my bags and went off to Tempe, AZ to attend school at ASU. I lived in the dorms (Manzanita stand up!) and was never good at talking to people I didn’t know so I used my beloved cassette collection and walkman as my security blanket. When I wasn’t skating around town with my headphones on, I was on my Apple iMac computer getting on dial-up AOL internet so I could go hit some of the blogs and message boards that I was into. One of my favorite sites to visit was Sandboxautomatic.com which was a mail order site that had inventory of the latest underground hip hop releases. I would go to Sandbox Automatic to find what was cool in hip hop that I couldn’t hear on the radio, see on MTV, or find in the bigger record stores. I would learn about artists from all over the US that nobody knew about. I ran up $10K in debt on several credit cards feeding my hip hop habit because I had to have EVERYTHING.
Of all of the new artists I found out about in the late 90’s through Sandbox Automatic, it was a group out of Minneapolis, Minnesota that I fell most in love with. I had no idea that there were rappers in Minnesota to begin with which made it all pretty cool to me. That group went by the name of Atmosphere and my first purchase of theirs was the Overcast! EP cassette in the cardboard packaging sleeve. I still have the tape and cherish it. It was my first purchase from the Rhymesayers record label and the first time I supported Slug, Spawn, and Ant from Atmosphere. Slug and Spawn were the emcees from Atmosphere while Ant handled the production. Spawn later left the group to pursue other artistic interests.
From the moment I heard the Overcast! EP, I was an immediate fan and picked up all Atmosphere releases and would scour the web for other Slug verses outside of Atmosphere projects because I thought he was such a dope emcee.
Shout out to the Sad Clown Bad Dub 2 album which is probably my favorite from Atmosphere. It doesn’t show up on the DSP’s but it deserves your time…
My college years in Arizona from ‘98 - ‘02 were filled with good hip hop and great times with my crew. And oh yeah, a ton of concerts and parties where we all raged listening to good music. Free time was spent watching and playing sports but then also skating to nearby record stores to support the art form called rap that I fell in love with as a child.
When I first heard that Murs and Slug were forming as a group in the early 00’s it was similar to when I heard that Shaq was joining the Lakers. Murs and Slug in a group together? And wait… The Grouch from the Living Legends would be on the beats? This was big news for underground hip hop nerds like me. The album, Felt: A Tribute to Christina Ricci dropped in 2002 on Rhymesayers Entertainment and I bought it as soon as I could.
As the years passed, I graduated college and got older but hip hop was still in my veins. I followed every new release from Atmosphere and Murs and then also followed their record labels as they were consistently a good source to find other music I liked. Rhymesayers introduces me to Brother Ali and Eyedea while Murs’ time with Def Jux got me more into El-P’s beats, Aesop Rock, Cannibal Ox, and more.
My responsibilities grew as an adult which left less time for music but I was always coming back home to hip hop. Both Atmosphere and Murs stayed active on the scene through new releases and constant touring and whenever I heard that Felt was dropping an album I was all ears.
They linked up with Ant from Atmosphere on the beats for their 2nd Felt album, Felt, Vol. 2: A Tribute to Lisa Bonet. While I enjoyed the first Felt album, volume 2 really resonated with me and where I was in my life when it dropped in 2005. The beats were smooth… Slug and Murs were in the pocket with their rhymes. The album cover with them in the back of the El Camino? Straight fire! Here’s “Dirty Girl” from the 2nd Felt album.
Every time Felt dropped an album it was like catching up with an old friend. I would listen and see where 2 of my favorite emcees were at during different stages of their lives. While some listen to music, I take it to another level and analyze lyrics and beat patterns and dissect tracks. Yeah, straight hip hop dork over here! Picking up on certain bars let me know where Slug and Murs were in their lives and that is one of the main reasons I love hip hop so much. If I had a good day, I had lyrics to fit the mood but if I was down in the dumps, I also had some songs for that. These dudes put their heart and souls into their lyrics and schooled me on life, love, stress, and setbacks. They brought out emotions in me that I’d held too long inside of me so I always had them as my homies in my headphones. Their music was often my therapy before I realized I actually needed a real-life therapist to help me deal with my chronic anxiety, self-doubt, and guilt daily.
I’ve been insecure my entire life but listening to Murs rap about things I was feeling over a smooth 9th Wonder beat let me know that I wasn’t alone. When I saw my main homies get girls without doing a damn thing I would just come back to “The Pain” from Murs because he was articulating what I felt but didn’t know how to say.
Felt dropped their 3rd album in 2009 and linked up with Aesop Rock on the production. If you don’t know Aesop Rock you need to go back on him too. The duo of Ace Rock and Blockhead came out with some great songs back in the late 90’s into the early 00’s. Ace had a flow and vocab that were different than ANY rapper you every heard. I still listen to some of his tracks and feel I’m not yet smart enough. I’ll get there though… Trust me, I will.
The title of that Felt album with Aesop Rock on the beats was Felt 3: A Tribute to Rosie Perez. With Ace Rizzle on the beats, you knew it was going to be a complete vibe change from where The Grouch and Ant had taken things. Aesop Rock had experimental hip hop beats so Murs and Slug were going to have to change up their flows to fit with his drums. Murs and Slug both rapped over El-P beats so it really didn’t matter what type of instrumentals you threw at them.
I’ll be completely honest with you too… I wasn’t feeling the production on this album when it dropped and I kind of skipped over it. But this is how I treat music at times. I don’t write certain albums off… I simply stash them away and bring them back out when the time is right. And this new Felt album has me running back to listen to ALL Felt albums and so now Felt 3 can get the attention it deserves. I know I’m more than 10 years late here but I made it back to the album.
And this brings us to the new Felt album, Felt 4 U. I didn’t realize it had been 11 years since Felt 3 and I had pretty much written them off as a group. Atmosphere was still dropping albums and Slug stayed active on guest verses. Murs was doing his thing and releasing music all over the place while touring constantly. But my news feed never mentioned anything about Murs and Slug being back in the studio so this surprise release is just dope.
Murs and Slug are getting up there in age but you know who else is? All of us listening to their music! My homie George said it best when he called the new Felt album adult contemporary hip hop. At first I wasn’t a fan of that label but now I actually love it. Look, I’m a rap fan and I try to stay up on trends but I am just getting too old for some of the new sh*t. I'd much rather bump some Phonte or Jonwayne while I do the dishes than Lil Uzi Vert. Call it dad rap, grown man hip hop or whatever… I’m bumpin it. Yup… I’m an old head and I’m damn proud of it! You can catch me in my kitchen nodding my head to songs likes “Sticks & Stones” praying that my wife doesn’t catch me all up in my element while I do a half-ass job of cleaning up. I’m trying to get better though… Work in progress just like my mental health.
“Sticks & Stones” is my favorite song on the new Felt album and it’s a must listen if you call yourself a fan of hip hop. The smooth beat from Ant with the wavy vocal samples sets the tone for Murs and Slug to perfectly ride the beat. Dope lyrics from both emcees. Come back my way at the end of the year and this will be up for top hip hop song of the year. I listen to a lot of music…. You can tell which ones have staying power and which ones will truly be felt.
Felt 4 is dope. Murs and Slug spit hot bars over some smooth production from Ant. It’s a full cohesive album that I can listen to from front to back. There won’t be any songs from this new album that make it on Rap Caviar and I like it that way. This album is one that I will bump in my headphones the rest of the summer while I do my chores around the house and work my 9-5 at my computer. I’m just a regular guy and I think Murs and Slug are just some regular dudes too. Maybe that’s why I dig them so much.
So to close this out, I gotta give props to everybody involved on this album. Murs, Slug, Ant, and the guest features. You guys made a solid album at a time when we all need some good music to get us through the Covid days. While the streams on the DSP’s won’t be in the millions, your core fans are making sure this album is felt.
Here is a Felt playlist for you guys to listen to. All songs include either Murs or Slug on them. I kept a Felt, Slug, Murs order and repeated it for most of the playlist but got sloppy at the end! These are great tunes to help you get through your day whether it be good or bad. It’s all good…. good music.