The Readnex Poetry Squad’s sound is theatrical, but that’s mostly the slam-lyrical vibe at work. Social Issue is a revolutionary hip-hop album at heart, but not quite in the same way that releases like Public Enemy’s It Takes A Nation Of Millions… made the mix of politics and music feel. PE albums present a united front and march out at you like a Roman legion. You’re either going to hear their message or get the hell out of the way. The RPS is more personal. The squad works together, but the command each member allows the poet on the mic to have over the total sound creates at least four distinct cadences to Social Issue.

The individual members of Readnex are poet/emcees Decora, Free Flowin, Cuttz, and Latin Translator. You can always tell when a different one is in the driver’s seat. Miraculously, the album doesn’t feel like four solo efforts packaged into one release. That’s where the theater of listening comes in. Something thematic and stylistic runs throughout and holds it all together, something that might be defined simply as revolutionary (if revolt were ever simple).

Decora and Latin bring about the first big uprising of the album with the fourth track, “Wade,” based on the traditional spiritual/anthem for runaway slaves, “Wade In The Water.” Here, the two emcees are as distinct as they are united, one more spoken word slam and one closer to straight-ahead rap. The approaches vary, but the track remains solid and singular. Maybe the best example of this collaborative-but-individual feel is one of only three tracks credited to a single name.

The lone female voice, Free Flowin, is the soul vocal proprietor of track eight, “Ms. Education Of Bling.” If you want a message that makes you say “damn!” on a hip-hop album, try, “We’re stuck in a generation where nobody knows our history, and where people believe that hip-hop artists who came from the ghetto are our only heroes.” You can see it not as a dig to those artists (because ultimately hip-hop artists are what The Readnex are to their own fan base) but a call to attention. Don’t forget Rosa and Dr. King, Flowin goes on to say and don’t forget that “we’re above ground for a reason…take your education seriously.” The wordless but not silent fifth member of RPS deserves special mention too, DJ H2O. If there was something blending the seams so well as to make the four elements seamless, it’d be the DJ on this one.

(Debefore Records, no address provided)