It's hard to call Mos Def or Talib Kweli "underground" with a straight face. No disrespect to either of the artists, but with 14 year-old suburban white kids singing along to "Ms Fat Booty" at approximations of house parties or watching the "The Blast" video on MTV2, it's inane to associate these rappers with obscurity. It's not these guys' fault, though, for reaching a mainstream audience; EPMD, for example, still sound completely real on "Crossover," their decry against sellouts that ironically become their largest hit. Similarly, NWA didn't even have time to water down or compromise before they dropped Straight Outta Compton and reached audiences of all ages, colors and creeds. Even though they were on the tiny Priority label, NWA illustrated that regardless of label and underdistribution, even the most initially underground rappers can become household names.

This isn't to say that major label hip-hop artists don't have a better shot than those on smaller labels, because obviously, they do. And yeah, there are also plenty of rappers that never get the attention that they deserve. San Fran's SoleSides label, for instance, is one that may have seen slight monetary success (if that), but never sported an artist that penetrated the mainstream's consciousness. Sure, DJ Shadow was a key SoleSides player from way back, and Blackalicious garnered a few fans, including many non-headnoddas.

Over the span of roughly six years (1992-1998) and less than 15 releases, Jeff "DJ Zen" Chang and his crew ran a label that was more invested in making real hip-hop for real fans than it was in anti-corporate, self-righteous ideals. SoleSides Greatest Bumps collects the label's anti-classics, along with a few rarities, and endlessly informative liner notes that prove one doesn't need to be heralded by The Man to be notable.

Upon revisiting what foremen Issac Bess, Lyrics Born, DJ Shadow, and Chang deem the best material released by SoleSides, it's clear why the imprint never gave birth to chartblazers. The production, which is mostly handled by Shadow, is sparse, often with little more than a standard beat driving the tracks. The Gift of Gab's "Rhyme Like a Nut!," for example, features only a faint robotic bassline under its stadium-sized beats. Lateef the Truth Speaker's "The Wreckoning" finds its melody in an eerie, minimalist keyboard line.

The emphasis, then, is mostly on the rhyming and lyrics, and in these departments, the rappers of SoleSides were almost universally masterful. Braggadocio reigns supreme, but an artist like Blackalicious' Gift of Gab does as much showing as telling on "Lyric Fathom," when he raps, "I rule kids/ I'm a kamikaze bomb droppin' nigga with an arsenal of drama in my rhymes." The words tumble out of his mouth at breakneck pace, and he makes a successful case for rapping's importance over oxygen. Lateef the Truth Speaker comes off furious on the brief snippet, "Lateef's Freestyle." Here, his rugged staccato recalls Onyx's Sticky Fingaz, though he doesn't sound nearly as ridiculous, and actually has the command to pull off lines like, "I sever off the heads of wack A&R;'s."

Though meta-rap comprises most of SoleSides Greatest Bumps, the record's best moment comes with the anti-misogynist anthem "Lady Don't Tek No." Over a funky, juicy Shadow beat and a sample that sounds suspiciously like "The Message," Latyrx (that's Lateef and Lyrics Born) give praise to a hip shakin' female. Her "razor-sharp wit" and the fact that she "carries herself like the cutest, most prettiest thing you ever seen this side of the Bay" are equally admired via a sung/rapped delivery. On this woman's literary tastes, it's commented that "she digs Angela Davis, Alice Walker, Nikki Giovanni, oh honey." They should have mentioned author Shange, if only because there are some good rhymes for "Ntozake."

These two discs are surprisingly short-- neither comes even close to the 74-minute maximum the technology offers. But this less-is-more approach does the compilation well, since nearly all of its constituents are vital. The collection, then, is as understated as SoleSides itself was. To say that a bulk of seminal, breakthrough material was produced in the indie's short existence would be resorting to hyperbole by way of retrospect. But saying that SoleSides was important-- a microcosm of hip-hop that paid no attention to coast in a time of East vs. West-- is more than fair.

-Richard M. Juzwiak