Murs 3:16: The 9th Edition

Possessed of a deliberate, clearly enunciated flow redolent of Jay-Z’s, Murs has always been more of a storyteller than a verbal acrobat. As a member of Los Angeles’ Living Legends collective his understated, storytelling based performances were often overshadowed by the more dexterous verses of his collaborators, and on his solo debut for Definitive Jux, his well considered rhymes were sometimes drowned out by willfully dissonant production. On *Murs 3:16* Murs finally found an ideal collaborator in the form of Ninth Wonder, a producer with a love for low key soul loops and effective if unobtrusive drum programming whose beats gave Murs plenty of room to spin his tales of an everyman living in Los Angeles. Romantic frustration is the subject matter of “Bad Man” and “The Pain” while “And This Is For…” is a no holds barred assault on the manifold hypocrisies of the rap industry. Murs’ first truly effective record, *3:16* established him as a distinct, quietly compelling voice speaking sensibly amidst the sometimes self reflexively verbose clamor of the Hip-Hop underground.