Veteran SoCal rapper MED (formerly Medaphoar) rounded up some impressive company on his debut album, Push Comes to Shove (Stones Throw), and the guests wind up outshining the host. Most of the tracks were produced by Madlib, who brings his trademark mix of clipped, bumping beats, soul and jazz samples, and digitized slicing and dicing; J Dilla, Just Blaze, and Oh No contribute some fine grooves of their own as well. MED’s a decent enough MC, but his narrow vocal range and jagged flow are a poor fit for the richly detailed tracks he’s working with, and it doesn’t help that his subject matter is so ho-hum: his raps are mainly love letters to herb and hip-hop, though his rhymes are often so illogical and convoluted it’s tough to figure out what the hell he’s saying about them. He’d do better with more minimal production, but the mismatch here isn’t enough to sink the tracks–they’d be strong no matter what.
