It’s been a minute since we last heard from New York emcee P.SO The Earthtone King. More accurately, it’s been about five years since his last release, Gateway to Greatness/Constellations, which in turn was a re-issue and expansion of a 2013 release. Any way you slice it, it’s good to have him back as he teams up with the production team known as 2 Hungry Bros. to release their EP, American Anime.

This EP is interesting for a few reasons, namely that it marks pivot point in P.SO’s career, even though it technically isn’t that much of a pivot. As you might have guessed from the name of the EP, this project is wading in some nerdy waters, as P.SO and others rap about comic books, fantasy, and science fiction, which would lead a lot of people to label this as “nerdcore.” They wouldn’t be wrong, either. What makes this interesting is that P.SO hadn’t really been grouped into that subgenre before, previously falling on more of the “art rap” side of things. Fortunately, over the years, there have been plenty of artists consistently jumping between the two worlds and blurring the lines, so that when P.SO returns from a hiatus and suddenly makes a project where the nerdiness is turned up to eleven, it doesn’t feel as weird as it would have ten years ago. It also helps to blur the lines when he teams up with a production team like 2 Hungry Bros., who among other things are best known for their work with Homeboy Sandman. This is to say that they help blur the line between subgenres when the beats are absolute bangers that even the oldest hip hop purest couldn’t deny. Just taking the opening track, “Bags and Boards,” and you’ll probably be cranking that shit up and bobbing your head like crazy to the beat before you realize the song is about comic books (and come on, the stigma around comic collecting should be dead, anyway). As the EP continues, P.SO weaves back and forth between songs that are personal narratives about his own experiences with nerd culture, and songs that jump into pre-existing fictional worlds, like those of Star Wars and Game of Thrones. P.SO is a talented and charismatic emcee, so he’s able to attack from all angles with the greatest of ease. My personal favorite on the EP is the posse cut of “Henry Cavill’s Mustashe,” featuring Mega Ran, Moses Rockwell, and Likwuid, which features some production that will bring out the stank face and lets each emcee shine with the best nerdy battle raps you’ll hear this year.

American Anime is one of the most pleasant surprises of 2019. It’s great to have P.SO The Earthtone King back, and even better to have him challenging himself and his listeners with something completely different than what he had done earlier in his career.