One of the highest compliments that I can pay to Quality Control is that this record would not have sounded out of place in 1992. That's not because the album has throwback elements (which it does, but even farther back than 1992, to around 1978), but because the style and craft of an album like Quality Control has been a real rarity since 1992. 1993 brought Dr Dre's The Chronic, which wasn't a bad album, but its fallout has not produced the best fruit. 1992 is pre-Chronic, pre-Thug Life, pre-No Limit and pre-Bad Boy. Beginning in 1993, my relationship with hip hop really took a turn for the worse. Sure, I could still count on acts like De La Soul and KRS-One, but new groups worth caring about were few and far between. Maybe it's the artists' fond memories or a spiritual reawakening, but something has happened to hip hop, and it's something for the better. I noticed this rebirth of quality songcraft in early 1998 when I first heard a Mos Def song, and when I first heard the Jurassic 5 EP. Quality Control continues where the EP left off.

Listening to Quality Control, I was repeatedly flabbergasted and amazed. Jurassic 5's four MCs, Marc 7, Akil, Chali 2NA and Zaakir, are adept, deft lyricists. Jurassic 5's lyrics are not political tracts or stories; instead, each lyricist turns words around on themselves and against one another to create a sort of sound-based architecture. Imagine if Rakim had loosened up after making Follow the Leader and cut an album with the Jungle Brothers. Jurassic 5 repeatedly recreates the standard verse-chorus-verse form through structural alteration, then masterfully exhibits those changes with their vocal harmonies and turns at the front. That's not to say that Quality Control is just a bunch of verbal acrobatics, but it's not a bad thing to appreciate the singing as nothing more than sound -- another set of drums or cut up horns on the track.

DJ's Nu-mark and Cut Chemist, the sonic equivalents of their MCs in skill, never go for the easy out with the music. More importantly, these DJs and their turntables are the backbone of the group. The tag team musicians twist apart sounds from seemingly vast sources, creating funky, toe tapping, good time songs. I know a handful of the songs listed in the sample credits but I've yet to recognize every element in one of the Jurassic 5's songs, such as they have been manipulated. That's one of the things I've missed in recent years: DJs who could make something new from samples rather than just cranking out a rote remake. Nu-Mark and Cut Chemist close the album with "Swing Set", a fantastic tribute to swing; it's something that made me want to cringe when I first thought about it, but the song easily wins me over as it rips apart and modernizes Swing's traditions and conventions. The recent swing revival didn't get it; "Swing Set" does (it's rhythm and dance, not guitars and fools in Zoot suits).

I think Quality Control's cover art, which shows the six group members gathered around a tree stump endowed with a turntable stylus and spindle, really tells you where this band is coming from in relation to musical history, style and form. They have roots in what came before, yet they have also altered the past to renew it and make it their own. After hearing Quality Control, I walk around replaying songs in my head. I can only make it stop by listening to the album again. Goddamn, that's great.