D/Will

North Kansas City, home of rapper and producer Denzel Williams, is a hinterland on the Killa City map. The suburban area — full of car dealerships, well-scrubbed fast-food joints and carefully mown working-class neighborhoods — is in many ways a perfect foil to the scenes of urban plight that outsiders associate with rap music. That's OK with Williams, who raps under the name D/Will. I'm from the suburbs/I don't have to fake shit, he raps on "Fresh Off the Charger" from his debut-proper solo album, Battery Effect. Like fellow local Mac Lethal, D/Will gladly (and repeatedly) presents his less-than-gangster résumé to listeners, banking instead on his considerable microphone skills and authenticity to carry the day. D/Will encourages other MCs to follow suit. Do you know who you are? he asks his fellow Kansas City rappers on "The Seen," over a smartly economical yet spaced-out beat. One of the supreme pleasures of Battery Effect is the feeling that D/Will is as relaxed in his own identity as he is his own rhyme style — a combination of battle rapper (heavy on dense wordplay) and intellectual meditation (heavy on social observation, as in "92," a song dedicated to the L.A. Riots). More efforts like Battery Effect, and the folks of North KC may have more to brag about than riverboat casinos.