Percee P - Perseverance

It took John Percy Simon (aka Percee P) long enough (20 years) to be properly introduced to the music world. Percee P has been rapping since the early 80's during the dawn of rap and hip-hop in the South Bronx where his mother moved the family when he was a young boy. While he made his own recordings he struggled to get any serious attention from record labels, and survived by selling mixtapes outside Fat Beats Records in Brooklyn. He's had additional success with numerous guest appearances on records by the likes of Vakill, Jedi Mind Tricks, Aesop Rock, and Cenobites, among many others. It wasn't until 2003 that Percee P finally landed at the trailblazing California-based hip-hop label Stones Throw that he had the opportunity to make his long-awaited (aptly titled) debut Perseverance.


Perseverance gives an extensive crash course in Percee P's ornate rhyme scheme and highly developed delivery style. His flow is definitely unique and hasn't changed over his many years in the business. This is another incredibly respectable quality about Percee's music. He hasn't bent his "old school" ideal where lyrical content is imperative to producing quality hip-hop. On the whole, Percee P spends the 54 minutes of his debut album going back and forth between boasting about his superior skills and his lack of recognition up until now. Normally, this lyrical content would be tired from other artists, but Percee P has earned this opportunity to stand on his own soapbox and he delivers throughout. Most of the production is left to fellow labelmate Madlib whose semi-experimental beats are juxtaposed with Percee's old school flavor. This pairing of old and new schools requires an amount of trust from both MC and producer, but on this particular album their collaboration was certainly worth the wait.


Eclectic collaboration with Four Tet: