Are you sitting down? Good. Now take a deep breath. Ready? The only local emcee close to the lyrical dexterity of Ohene (pronounced OH' Henny) is Last Emp. Ohene will come to be known as the KRS-ONE of the new millennium. Mark my words. Ohene is going to go down as one of the greatest emcees in the history of Philadelphia. I'm sure most of y'all are accusing me of going overboard. I guarantee that after listening to The Rapademics, you'll come to see things my way. This man's rhymes will give your brain a entertainingly vigorous workout.

The Rapademics succeeds on the strength of Ohene's confident delivery, delicious syntax, smoothly transitioning from casual smoothness to authoritative exclamations and back. The production throughout is smartly sparse, serving as a perfect Robin to Ohene's Batman. While the production is in fact sparse, every aspect of it is extremely well done and drops with an understated aplomb. Intelligent reigns throughout. This North Philadelphia artist spins vivid tales that force the listener to envision his words come to life as on the multi-layered dual historical consciousness of Grandfather Paradox (sure to draw comparisons to Last Emp), the masterful lyrical grand slam Epilogue (Neo-Cubism) and its challenging multi-meaning tale of a blind man that forces you to rewind again and again to fully comprehend. Ohene exerts the rare skill set needed to completely captivate the ear while going north of two minutes on O-MC2 acapella. Again, comparisons to The Blastmaster will surface, yet O has a distinctly unique style. The man is soooooooo learned and exact with his subject matter that it is received like a crack head receives a rock. Classic is the only word that does justice to the "jackin' for beats" motiff of Eraz Of Flow. Here we find Ohene taking the listener on a lyricallesson through the different eras of Hip Hop, making good use of RUN-DMC, Boogie Down Poductions, Naughty By Nature, De La Soul, Das EFX, Dr. Dre & Snoop Doggy Dogg, Craig Mac, Common and more sound samples to drive the point on home. You gotta hear it to believe it.

Ohene's persona is a greatly needed and welcomed diversion from the overwhelmingly negative stereotypes that the majors maniaclistically force feed to the poverty stricken sufferers who are mislead into believing that they're trapped in a mental wasteland. O steps up to inject the downtrodden with the exact serum needed to wake them from their deep street sleep. Do whatever you need to do to add this album to your collection.

I leave you with the following from Ohene's It Is O: "now cue your tape for the winter time, now it's time for the renesance, many times I done told y'all charlatans do the right thing, now knowin' the power y'all music might bring, you oscilate between a lot of fake obscene kind of snakes who fiend for a lot of cake, that ain't the type with which I like to conversate, I'm tryin' to take my mind to the kind of place, visited by Da Vinci and Beethoven, my symphonies were foretold when they told em', cats didn't respect it, nonetheless my art survived the archive and became the best..."

RAHM Nation

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Review by Funk Wizard Snow
Editor- PhillyHipHop.com
August, 2004