Frontline

A Windy City consortium with a backpacker sensibility, this umbrella crew is actually a record label disguised as a group. Consisting centrally of four MCs/producers -- jDoubleu, Atlas, Banner, and Chauncie Gardner (whose moniker is taken from the Adamic Peter Sellers character in the movie Being There) -- Frontline's goal was to challenge the status quo of the rap game. Their music sounds like the end result of living, breathing, and sleeping hip-hop for weeks on end in a basement studio. Psychological catharsis bleeds from their edgy tracks, concepts, and lyrics; their music...