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With Casual’s ‘Starduster,’ a Rap Legend Reaches New Heights

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Casual's new EP shows him in top form.  (Courtesy Needle to the Groove)

Despite being part of a legendary crew, releasing a classic major label debut, and participating in one of the world’s most famous rap battles, the rapper Casual has always felt a bit underrated.

Maybe it’s because his style sits at the center of so many overlapping circles in the Venn diagram of Bay Area rap: streetwise, intelligent, angular. Maybe it’s because his bars are tightly composed instead of elastic and pliable. None of these are impediments to quality, but in a trend-centered rap landscape, they can cause a fickle public to overlook a simple fact: Casual never fell off.

For proof, look no further than Starduster, a five-song EP released last November that shows the Hieroglyphics rapper in his most solid form. With sharp, inventive production by Albert Jenkins and a renewed fire in his pen, Casual isn’t stuck in the past. Over Jenkins’ futuristic production, he opens the EP with “The Design,” acknowledging modern concerns like commenting and blocking: “Rappers follow me ’cause rhymes from my catalog read like an intergalactic battle log,” he spits.

Guitarists talk incessantly about tone; rappers don’t, enough. But Casual’s tone carries multitudes. See “Belly (Remix),” which, after some nasally bars with more internal rhyming than Dr. Seuss, slowly pivots to a voice full of defiance and grit. There’s a street scene, a shady character on the corner, an errant tattoo gun. Casual wraps it up declaring: “Imma keep puttin’ rhymes on the gram ’til you silly motherfuckers realize who I am.”

Starduster is released by Needle to the Groove Records, a record store with locations in Fremont and San Jose. But ever since his 1993 debut Fear Itself, Casual’s been inextricably linked with Oakland, making this week’s record-release show in the Town a homecoming not to miss. Supporting DJs Domino and Platurn need no introduction among hip-hop heads, and Psalm One and Fatboy Sharif, from Chicago and New Jersey, are set to fly out for the occasion. Needle to the Groove’s own David Ma and Starduster producer Jenkins will also man the decks.

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It’s hard to talk about this EP without acknowledging Casual’s one-time battle opponent Saafir, the immensely gifted rapper who died just days after Starduster’s release. Both Casual and Saafir moved on from their legendary 1994 on-air battle with an eventual mutual respect; even today, Casual can rap along to parts of Saafir’s verses.

Rap battles often propel both contenders to new heights. With Starduster, Casual proves he’s still ascending, higher and higher.


Casual headlines a record-release show for ‘Starduster’ on Thursday, Jan. 16, at Crybaby in Oakland. Details here.

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