In The Black Atlantic, British cultural theorist Paul Gilroy uses the ocean, the portal for the slave trade as well as a conduit for voluntary and forced migration, as a metaphorical space in which to consider the discursive formation of African intellectual history. Borrowing from W.E.B. Dubois, one of the book’s foundational concepts is double consciousness, or the mental state often felt by people who are made aware of the social reality that they go through their everyday lives holding on to multiple identities at once.

Gilroy’s book landed at the right time, particularly since he insists on an expansion of the term “intellectual” beyond the academy, reasoning that musicians—particularly hip hop artists, whose verbal dexterity is integral to artistic expression—should qualify. The book came out in 1993, shortly after black feminist scholars like Kimberlé Crenshaw applied intersectionality, a methodological approach that considers the interrelatedness of once-distinct identity categories, and right at the moment when cerebral, politicized musical movements like the Native Tongues had purchase in popular culture.

But one of the book’s weaker moments is when Gilroy hastily lists a bunch of seemingly disparate artists like Bad Brains, 2 Live Crew, and A Tribe Called Quest, as if he feels he must account for the history of black artists’ contributions to popular music in thirty pages or less. This portion provides insufficient context for each artist he mentions—few of whom are women and many of whom at least lapsed into casual misogyny, if not indulged in its outright. In roughly sketching the relatively brief history of hip hop, he ultimately doesn’t account for its depth. Hip hop is a dense genre, invested in language and laden with intertextual references, most notably layers of sampled music that challenge the cultural primacy placed on origins and the meanings we draw from music. Take “Sweat” a track from Seattle-based hip hop duo THEESatisfaction’s full-length debut awE naturalE, which samples the horn section from Earth, Wind & Fire’s “Turn It into Something Good,” using it to build sexual tension that is then explored lyrically. Knowing the duo’s orientation as queer women might better inform our understanding of the complete work. Context is everything.

Despite these weaknesses, The Black Atlantic is still assigned for grad students to read because it modestly argues two points that were radical for its time that we cannot take for granted: black people are autonomous subjects and that the term “black people” is a failure of language, because the loose aggregate framed by it are never one thing to themselves, culture, or one another. Essentialisms minimize people, who often deal in contradictions and operate at different levels. Or put differently, as THEESatisfaction do on “God,” “I’m torn between that side and that side.”

Many of the artists and musical movements Gilroy champions seem to have common ground with THEESatisfaction, the name behind Stasia Irons and Catherine Harris-White’s joint venture. Backpackers may note their participation as backing vocalists on labelmate Shabazz Palaces’ Black Up and draw a connection between the two acts’ proclivity toward abstraction, mood, and esoteric turns of phrase and Ishmael Butler’s membership in Digable Planets. Music journalists might suggest more than gender plays into a forced comparison between THEESatisfaction’s forward-looking pop and Janelle Monae’s fusion of Octavia Butler’s allegorical prose, Grace Jones’ stage presence, and James Brown’s wardrobe, though they may not be able to articulate what those similarities are. Maybe they share an herbalist with Jill Scott too.

Ultimately, references don’t help because they suggest artists can be explained away and therefore contained. I love awE naturalE. At present, it’s my favorite album of the year. When pressed to explain why, my default mode is to talk around it. But what I love most about it though is that it sounds almost familiar and seductively intimate, like that moment when you discover that you’re really starting to get to know someone before the earth shifts underneath and you realize that people are surprising and smart people never stick to the script. Irons and Harris-White, who previously released a few CD-Rs prior to their deal with Sub Pop, share a warm, conversational flow and weave between rapping and singing with seemingly little effort. Their wordplay makes for an eminently quotable record, whether they insist that you “sweat through your cardigan” while dancing to “QueenS,” wonder “what are the ideals that hold you back” on “Earthseed,” note that “my melanin is relevant” on “Deeper,” call out white supremacy with the line “black Jesus—meaning of course he’s white” on “Enchantruss,” and repeat “I don’t need to prove myself” as “Needs” driving mantra.

What really sets this record apart—what sets most excellent albums apart, really—is that awE naturalE builds a world around itself and is confident that you will want to lose yourself in it. Part of this is attributable to Irons and Harris-White’s perceptive lyrics and wry, assured vocal delivery. But credit should be given to their skill as producers too. What seems to matter most to THEESatisfaction is texture. At moments, this record flickers like one tiny candle in a dark room. Other times, it shines with the jagged aggression of an uncut jewel. Often—as the songs tend to end abruptly—it rips like a piece of scratch paper you store in your pocket for later use.

But unlike a number of “great” records, awE naturalE isn’t trying to make a great statement. It isn’t insisting that it has a bead on what it means to be a black woman a decade into a new millennium and a supposedly “post-racial” cultural moment. It probably thinks such grand claims are bullshit, just as using proper capitalization might be a tool of respectability from the oppressor (caps lock is a choice). Instead, Irons and Harris-White focus on who they are and what they want to say as individuals and how they want to get at making such statements. In addition to banter, they make tremendous use of the comma, the question mark, the em dash, and a whole host of other punctuation marks to get at the nuance of inflection. This often means that they aren’t always sure what they’re trying to say so much as they are intoxicated by the possibilities of language and rhythm. So they mine the comedic possibilities of uncertainty and harness the erotic potential of self-actualization to make art that is at once referential, singular, wise, and wickedly sexy. Most great records need at least 50 minutes to accomplish this. awE naturalE gets it done in half an hour, which gives you plenty of time to hit replay.