Nice. Been a while since I've listened to any Jean Grae. I love 9th Wonder's beats, too.

:) Yeah I heard one song from her a while ago on one of DJ Jazzy Jeff's CDs and was like "wait this is interesting" and it turns out she has a lot of credibility in hip hop despite not having a lot of mainstream traction. She absolutely murders the intro to this Jeanius CD: youtube link.

I'm not totally sure I understand this phenomenon of rappers absolutely blazing on Intros more than on the other songs. I guess they take that intro track as an opportunity to just rhyme while they're trying to make more 'full' songs on the rest of the CD.

Yeah, she's been well known in hip hop circles for a while. For as long as I've known about her, she's seemed on the verge of blowing up; she's shown up on dozens of those "emcees to watch" lists over the years, for instance.

The thing with the intros is very true. Emcees put a lot of energy into the intro to get the listener hyped for the rest of the album, but I've always found it weird when the level of energy in the intro doesn't fit with the rest of the album. Reminds me of Jonson & Jonson's self-titled debut. Blazing intro (yt link), but the rest the album is a lot more laid back.