It’s been a great but busy week so far with great music dropping like manna from the skies and my favourite emcees doing shows right in my city that sometimes it gets pretty difficult trying to keep up. Still bumping my head to the just released Guilty Simpson & Small Pro album and now this!

Straight from the borough of Queens is this pragmatic figure called L.E.O (Love Equals Omnipotence) who just released a ten track body of work titled Whatever Is Necessary (Vol 1). From the first track till the end, we have a non stop barrage of heavy gripping instrumentals, potent lyricism and the perennial(much needed) social commentary. Even though he brought a handful of guests to the playing field, L.E.O’s effortless mild mannered delivery and flow is distinct enough to shine through these songs. His style has that vintage low end feel that just stays in your head, I must say hands down this project is something you all should listen to.

Choice tracks for me : The Long Halloween , Black Boy(that Masta Ace sample kills me every time ), boom bap rhetoric, Natural selection, Melancholy

 Naturally, a number of rapper’s would kill to work with the legendary Large Professor, a beat making phenom that has a good eye for spotting emerging talent. Although L.E.O. (Love Equals Omnipotence) got his chance to work with Xtra P, he wasn’t banking on the fact that their collaboration with elevate him. “Once you do an album with an legend like the Large Professor you think your name will start to get noticed.” said the  Queens emcee. “When that doesn’t happen, you realize that every project carries its own meaning regardless of the notoriety or lack thereof.”

Instead of calling it quits, L.E.O. kept hustling and gave us Whatever Is Necessary (Vol.1) in the process. The album, which features a broad range of sounds from the opera tones of “Boombox Rhetoric” to the laid back guitar twangs of “Black Boy,” L.E.O.’s uncanny ability to flow with the tracks being presented to him is proof that he can spit with the best of them. Though he is the main star of the album, it would be unfair to disregard the talents of the rapper’s collective, The Fallout Shelter, and the mixing talents of J-Zone when speaking on the overall structure and the final outcome of the project. Whatever Is Necessary (Vol.1) is without a doubt “for Hip-Hop heads, by Hip-Hop heads.” Let’s hope that Volume 2 makes its way through the pipeline shortly.

 

About L.E.O: 

L.E.O. began mastering his craft during middle school by spitting a rhyme and a demo here and there, but put his talents on the back burner when he grasped at the opportunity to attend law school. The name is derived from the idea that love shouldn’t be an esoteric concept, as those with love in their lives are all power beings who cannot be stopped. After joining Unleashed By Science in 2000, who dropped their Rooftop Logic EP earlier this year, the group understands that everything on this planet is linked by a relative body of knowledge. The Queens emcee continued to put in work featuring his brother Xplicit, who at the time was working with Masta Ace and Large Professor and produced “Acknowledge” and “In The Sun” for the artists, respectively, the latter of which featured A Tribe Called Quest member Q-Tip. In 2002, X and L.E.O dropped their collaborative project, Blue In the Vein, and kept dropping rhymes on Science’s Experiments In Audiology in 2003 and on the DJ Skully compilation of the very same year. 2006 would be the year that the rapper reunited with Skully for the White Hot Wax compilation, which boasts production from Quincy Tones, while 2008 had L.E.O. join forces with Large Pro on Spiritual Intelligence. With DVSMiddleFingaz‘s concept album  All In A Daze Journey in 2012 and a list of future projects featuring L-Swift from Natural Elements, J-Zone, MeccaGodZilla from MF Doom‘s Monsta Island Czars and Baron from Red Clay, it’s safe to say that L.E.O. doesn’t plan on taking any breaks for the next while.

Tracklist:

01.  Boombox Rhetoric (feat. Hellspawn Darkness)

02.  Bio-Weapons (prod. by Xplicit)

03.  Melancholy (feat. Last Words) Politic516

04.  Black Boy (The Carnage Remix)

05.  Natural Selection (feat. MeccaGodZilla)

06.  The Killshot (feat. Unleashed By Science)

07.  The Long Halloween (feat. Last Words)

08.  Mental Vitamins (feat. Eyerule)

09.  Perseverance (The Carnage Remix)

10.  Free-Dumb (feat. Hellspawn Darkness)