Es-K is a producer originally from Kansas City, but now based in Burlington, Vermont. He has been releasing music for about the last ten years, and in that time he’s worked with labels like Cold Busted, Millennium Jazz Music, and Inner Ocean. Just earlier this month, he dropped an EP called Always Something. Now he has teamed up with Norwegian producer Type.Raw from loop.holes to drop an album called Raw Essentials.

There are, of course, numerous ways to approach an album as a producer, or as a production duo. For Raw Essentials, Es-K and Type.Raw have given us a vocal compilation album that allows them to drop some of their funkiest boom bap and let a myriad of emcees take the mic and do their thing. Over the course of the album, we get appearances from A-F-R-O, Kidaf, Jarv, Slim Jeff, June, Fish Grease, Ruste Juxx, Ill Conscious, Venomous 2000, K.Sparks, WS Verbal, Konflik, Oso Dope, Shadow the Great, Napoleon Da Legend, El Da Sensei, Five Steez, Kid Abstrakt, General Steele, and Chel Strong. Now, an album like this with this many emcees could easily go off track, and many in the past have done just that. All it take is one bad verse, and the whole album can be taken down a notch. Fortunately, on Raw Essentials, that doesn’t happen. I will say that we do suffer just slightly from a different (and much smaller) type of problem, which is that a lot of the emcees don’t do enough to really stand out with exceptional verses or distinct flows, so a lot gets lost in the middle. It’s a minor complaint, though, when you’ve got boom bap from Es-K and Type.Raw that bumps this hard. Also, you do get a few veterans like Napoleon and El Da Sensei who really bring it and have fun with it on “The Temple.”

Raw Essentials isn’t anything all that new, but when boom bap like this is done right and just makes you want to turn your stereo up, who cares? Es-K and Type.Raw have laid down some bangers on this album, and they brought along a lot of friends to join in the fun, and that fun comes through time and again.