Alaska is an emcee from New York who is part of the great lineage of underground hip hop in the city, as part of both Atoms Family and Hangar 18. He’s been doing the solo thing for a while now, linking up with different artists as he sees fit, such as in 2021 when he and Jason Griff came together to make an album called Human Zoo. Now he’s teamed up with producer Steel Tipped Dove to drop another full-length album, The Structural Dynamics of Flow.

Every once in a while, two artists will pair up that seem like such an obvious pairing, you’ll wonder why it never happened before. In the case of Alaska and Steel Tipped Dove, one listen to this album and you’ll be thrilled that their careers finally stopped hovering around each other and finally had everything line up so that they could work together in earnest. That’s because these two go together like peanut butter and jelly, with Steel Tipped Dove laying down all of these creative and slightly weird beats that perfectly walk that line between being challenging and accessible, and Alaska is feeding off of that energy and giving us some of his best and most well-rounded lyricism in a minute. This isn’t to bag on any other projects he’s worked on recently, only to praise this moment where it feels like everything has lined up and we’re really getting the best he has to offer. That’s because his flow is coming at you clear and direct, and over the course of the album we’re getting everything from clever shit talk about the hip hop culture and music industry that he’s been part of for so long, to poignant observations about pop culture and society, to self-deprecating humorous lines, to really personal and tender revelations as well. In listening to this album, it becomes clear very quickly that this is a special project.

The Structural Dynamics of Flow is the album that you didn’t know that you wanted or needed, but now that it’s here, you can’t imagine that it was ever not in your collection. It’s just classic indie hip hop done by two artists in Alaska and Steel Tipped Dove who have put in the work and clearly inspire each other to raise everything to another level. It’s smart, it’s soulful, it’s ambitious, and it’s very approachable all at the same time.