Edan

There was a small but vital hip-hop genesis in Boston at the tail-end of the 1990s led by a motley group of artists (Porn Theatre Ushers, Skitzofreniks, 7l & Esoteric, Mr. Lif, Insight) who shared a number of musical attributes -- a love of block-rockin' retro-beats and veneration for the hip-hop "new school" of the late '80s and early '90s, and a proclivity for irreverent, tongue-in-cheek lyrical styles, to name the most significant. Bedroom geek Edan (aka the Humble Magnificent) was the most block-rockin' and irreverent of all Boston's underground scientists. A triple threat on the microphone, as a producer, and behind the wheels of steel, his music -- a willfully oddball and eccentric blend of rap's past and future -- caught on first among the progressive cognoscenti of London, but had such exuberance and appeal that it was only a matter of time before it staked out territory on its home turf as well.