One Steppa Head/ Foreign Legion/ March 24th
Published 26th Feb 2003 by Concorde 2

Sharp hip-hop ears have long recognized that the shiny, happy, blow-up world of mainstream rap is littered with wack MCs and painfully corny production. But nowadays it seems like hip-hop?s underground ? the once-reliable sanctuary of skills ? is just as polluted, with boo-boo rhymes about tired subject matter over sorry, undernourished beats. Unworthy acts with wax unfortunately on the streets have turned the ?underground hip-hop group? into a bad parody of itself. Ugh. So thank your hip-hop gods-and-earths for Foreign Legion ? fine purveyors of quality beats & rhymes.

Continuing the tradition set forth by the West Coast?s most innovative, intelligent, and playful hip-hop outfits, this Bay Area-based three-man catch-wreckin? crew is all about progression, quality, and attention to detail. The FL rocks the bells with tag-team rhyme cleverness courtesy of MCs Prozack and Marc Stretch, and punctuated with the guaranteed head-nod, dusty-crate-dug beat bangers of DJ Design.

Foreign Legion (no special meaning, just sounded cool with an exotic flair) began back in 1988 when San Jose, CA-based bike thieves Prozack and DJ Design started making rap tunes together. (Though if you were a college radio DJ interviewing them, these down-to-joke-around clowns might feed you some stories about meeting at a lumberjack convention or in the jungles of Vietnam, where Design?s pops actually was a DJ.) FL?s original two-man DJ/MC combo became a trio nearly 10 years later in 1997, when they were at a club in San Francisco and met Marc Stretch, then going by the name Peter Parker, a heavyweight New Jersey transplant living in Vallejo. They all clicked creatively and it was on. Prozack doubles as a stand-up comedian, while DJ Design has concocted other tasty blends of drums and samples for respected hip-hop indie label Stones Throw. And Marc Stretch ? well, he?s currently working as a stunt double for E-40 and Forrest Whittaker.

Foreign Legion provides pure hip-hop minus the pretentiousness, sounding like a scatterbrain trio that loves what they do. And they do. But unlike some of their underground peers, these magical three don?t need to make songs that constantly remind you how ?hip-hop? they are. Okay, they did have their ?living la vida hip-hop? track with ?Full Time B-Boy,? from their subterranean smash, three-song 12-inch single on ABB Records ? home of street success stories Dilated Peoples and Defari. But Foreign Legion?s brilliant debut album Kidnapper Van (no special meaning, just went along with a now-scrapped idea for the LP?s cover) on Insiduous Urban Recordings raises the bar and goes out on a limb with conceptually rich rap tales and perfectly executed production from three complex and open minds. First official single ?Nowhere to Hide? parodies paranoid conspiracy theories; ?Meantime?, ?Reference Check? and ?Chain Reaction? all rock clever thematic spins; and ?Never Be #1? and ?Overnight Success? drop words of wisdom. Another album stand-out, ?Underground,? serves as a wake-up call to skill-deficient underground MCs. Of course Foreign Legion can still proficiently bust freestyles about how fresh they are and how wack everybody else is. It?s still hip-hop, ya?know. But they make it sound like straight-up fun.

And fun is definitely what they have on stage. It?s not enough that the group?s lyrical two-thirds are physically dynamic opposites (Prozack is a 5?8?, 150 lb. white kid and Marc Stretch is a 6?5?, 300 lb. black dude). The mutually talented, microphone-connected cats go all out and both put on a variety of costumes for their wild, unpredictable, always crowd-pleasing live shows. They?ve played famed pairs like Batman & Joker, Fred & Barney, Crockett & Tubbs, Superman & a black/green Incredible Hulk. Anything goes ? And that includes a Star Wars stage show that takes a bizarre detour into a WWF match. Or the time at the Fat Beats Anniversary in LA when Marc Stretch carried Prozack around on his back in a big bag made for scuba diver?s oxygen tanks during their whole set, giving new meaning to the hip-hop term ?backpacker.? Looking for some fun yourself? Hop in the Kidnapper Van and prepare to be abducted. Just don?t tell Mom, you wouldn?t want her to worry.

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