Titanium Frame

The first offering from TrueSpittaz Entertainment's Titanium Frame includes some of the city's master wordsmiths spitting fire over an assortment of ill beats, courtesy of Titanium Frame's beat-making alter ego, Skills Lane. The result is The Bottom Line, a 15-song disc securely entrenched in KC lore. Play-school raps are not the norm on this opus; varying degrees of tongue-talented MCs, including Mac Lethal, James Christos, Joe Good and the Backwood Brovas, among others, join Titanium Frame to assert energetic lyrical prose amid animosity toward the "garbage" rap that prevails in mainstream radio. Songs such as "Boss Game" (featuring Christos) and "Truth Is" stand out; others, such as "Skills Lane" and "Letters," featuring Lyrical Suspect, eschew the status quo of ass-shaking, gun-toting, materialistic rap. Not every song on the album is made for mass consumption (some are simply unengaging; see "B.U.G." and "Ni**as Don't"), but The Bottom Lineis still a refreshing alternative to the norm, thanks to Titanium Frame's insistence on staying true to the roots and core elements of the genre: head-bobbing beats and high-quality rhymes.