“Woman at Work” by Psalm One

Photos: Top indie albums | Year's Best Albums | Best Box Sets

At the end of each year, Turn It Up focuses on the best of Chicago's independent music scene. Here are my 10 favorite local indie releases for 2010:

1. Cap D, “PolyMath” (All Natural): How to define success? David "Cap D" Kelly offers a few ideas that suggest it’s about more than accumulating immediate financial reward. For more than a decade, this erudite MC has been forging his own path with his label and group (both named All Natural), as well as his solo projects. He is criminally under-recognized nationally, but he takes a back seat to no MC with his sharp mind, incisive flow and increasingly robust tracks in the Chicago dusties-soul tradition. Though typecast as too high-minded for an art form that puts a premium on swagger, there’s nothing soft about these rhymes. In “Chicago Five-O” he’s as ominous as a shiv in a back-alley rumble, exposing the brutal politics of race relations in the streets of his home city. A landmark release from one of the best MC’s this city has produced.

    As most everybody on the planet knows, Friday marks the one-year anniversary of Michael Jackson’s death at age 50 on the eve of a major comeback tour.

       What many people may not know is that the best Michael Jackson-related album of the last two decades was released more than a year earlier, though Jackson probably wasn’t even aware of its existence when it first surfaced on the Internet. It’s called “Man in the Mirror (The Michael Jackson Dedication Album),” by South Side native Rhymefest. The download is no longer available – it was released for free on Rhymefest’s Web site – and was later taken down when Jackson’s lawyers became aware of its existence. “Man in the Mirror” inventively uses samples of Jackson’s music and interviews to create a new work that plays as one talented fan’s affectionate, frequently humorous, and clearly heart-felt homage to one of the last century’s greatest entertainers.

       It’s too bad there are so many grumps on Jackson’s legal team. The album’s a great piece of work, and made my top-10 list at the end of 2008. Rhymefest’s tribute is a fine way to remember Jackson the artist (rather than the scandal-ridden celebrity he became) on this sad day.

3 stars (out of 4)

Rhymefest (born Che Smith 32 years ago in Chicago) was already something of a star before he made an album. He bested Eminem in a national battle-rhyme competition in 1997, cowrote Kanye West’s Grammy-winning 2004 hit “Jesus Walks” and was signed by U.K. producer Mark Ronson to a major-label deal. When Rhymefest’s 2006 full-length debut, “Blue Collar,” appeared on Clive Davis’ J label, West-like stardom seemed within reach. But “Blue Collar” stiffed commercially, in part because it couldn’t be easily pigeonholed. It presented Rhymefest as astute social critic, style-hopping visionary and street hustler, topped by a self-deprecating sense of humor.

Rhymefest spent the last several years extricating himself from his deal, releasing free mix tapes (including a fascinating take on Michael Jackson, “Man in the Mirror,” more than a year before the singer’s death) and refining the follow-up, “El Che.” The album has been through several incarnations, including one that reportedly included contributions from Lil’ Jon, Jadakiss and West, among others. But in the end, Rhymfest decided to trim out most of the high-profile cameos and the high-budget producers. Instead, he presents another diverse album that feels leaner and hits harder than the debut, but is no less complex.

"El Che" (dNBe Entertainment) is connected by short skits in which the MC plays hip-hop’s answer to Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara, part for dramatic effect, part for comic relief. It’s never entirely clear when he’s putting us on or when he’s putting out, which is a part of Rhymefest’s appeal. He can approximate a baritone boom-rap oracle like KRS-One in one song (“Talk My …), and in the next turn himself into a sex-crazed mischief-maker with a stutter and a lisp (“Chocolates”). One minute he’s attacking the commercialization of faith in “Prosperity,” then he’s woozily recounting a massive bender in “Last Night.” He attacks his foes with relish, but directs some of the funniest putdowns at himself.

Not everything clicks. For a supposedly high-minded thinker, he sometimes comes off as homophobic and misogynistic. The production feels refreshingly raw, but the pop sweetening – mostly in the R&B-style; choruses and backing vocal tracks – is distracting. Still, this intriguing hodgepodge affirms Rhymefest as a hip-hop eccentric who dreams big. He’s got the talent to be a mainstream star, but only if it’s on his idiosyncratic terms.

greg@gregkot.com