With the NOFRIENDS tour launching in September, Adam WarRock, Jesse Dangerously, Mikal kHill, and Tribe One got together to brainstorm a way to raise funds help cover costs. After kicking around some ideas, they settled on making a mixtape where each artist rapped over each other’s beats. It’s a concept that in retrospect seems so obvious and fun, I can’t think of a better way to get fans excited for the tour.

With any compilation, some tracks are going to stand out more than others, but I think what makes Fun Razor so enjoyable is that over the course of the record, you really get a sense of how much the artists enjoy each other’s work. Each track feels like the new emcee was already very familiar with the beat and couldn’t wait to put their personal spin on it. The majority of songs are fun, but a few of the tracks work so well and bring out some really moving lyricism that really elevates the project. The biggest standout to me is “Coming Out Wrong,” in which Jesse Dangerously takes on Tribe One’s “Different,” which was already a very moving song, and further complicates ideas of gender, sexuality, and self-identification. Other favorites include Adam WarRock’s “Instagram,” which uses ThoughtCriminal’s “Our Time,” to explore the relationship between digital technology and trying to make one’s living as an independent artist, and the sweet and intimate “My Muse,” which Mikal kHill wrote to The Remnant’s “Know This.” Of course, if you’re already familiar with all of the artists involved, you’ll probably enjoy Fun Razor on more levels than other listeners. However, the songs on this collection are fully formed, and they aren’t full of in-jokes that are banking on listeners getting a bunch of references. Even if you’ve never heard any of this artists before, I believe you could listen to this and get excited about the tour and dig through each emcee’s catalogue.

I love the concept of Fun Razor so much, I wouldn’t be sad if more tours did something like this. Of course, the concept only gets you part of the way there. The real success in this compilation is that they took the time to do it right, and this tour lineup obviously has some good chemistry.