I Kno their name is not that Cunning

Nothing To Give - Cunninlynguists
Beautiful Girl - Cunninlynguists
both from the album A Piece Of Strange – Freshchest (2006).

After you run in certain circles for a while you start to have a lot of trouble telling what is underground and what’s over. I seldom here folks talking about Cunninlynguists, but they have been around for while with three albums and lots of collaborations and get some press. So I apologize if I’m preaching to the converted with this post, but however much credit and praise these cats are getting I do not think it is enough.

After a really good debut album (Will Rap For Food), Cunninlynguists blew we away with Southernunderground (Freshchest 2003), which was one of my favorite albums of that year, and now they have really impressed me again with A Piece Of Strange. Although they’ve had some folks floating in and out of their line-up, Cunninlynguists is at the core Deacon the Villain on the mic and Kno on production. Deacon is certainly more than serviceable as an MC, but the real star is Kno’s beatwork. In trying to think of what it is about this cat’s stuff that I love so much, I couldn’t think of anything in particular that he does that is super unique or groundbreaking. However, to me he just puts everything together brilliantly with excellent drum patterns, well chosen melodic samples, great song structure, and even the mix down of these songs seems just right with the drums hitting perfectly verses the rapper and topping vocals.

I put up two tracks at random from the latest album, which I think is just the tops from its Henri Rousseau-esque jungle painting cover to all the heart-felt and beautiful tracks that offset the Lynguists one-off frat-boy-humor style name.