Jam Baxter â The Gruesome Features (Review)
 As a member of the near-legendary rhyme crew Contact Play, Jam Baxter should be a name very much familiar to any Hip Hop headâs with an interest in the UK scene. Alongside Dirty Dike, Ronnie Bosh, Ed Scissortongue and Mr Key, Jambo has forged his own path through the underground, making up his own boundaries and forming his own distinct style of irreverent rhymes and wordplay. Back in 2010, he released his debut solo LP, the double disc epic âRinse Out Friday/Spack Out Mondayâ to wide critical acclaim. Since then, he and Dike have toured extensively around the country and seemingly put out material on a non-stop basis.
 Featuring heavily as a member of Fliptrixâs High Focus Records, Jam has toured with the mighty Four Owls and penned guest verses on most of the labelâs releases since its inception. In the meantime, heâs been making tracks with some of his favorite MCâs literally whenever time has allowed. The result is this CD, itâs NOT an Album, as Jam himself points out in the liner notes âThis little shit slyly built itself up over the last year while I wasnât looking. My plan was to plug a gap between Albumâs by making a few tunes with a few talented individuals without having to worry about an end product.â.
What we end up with is a Ronseal LP, it literally does exactly what it sayâs on the tin; Fourteen tracks done with some of the nicest MCâs in the UK scene with a massive variation of production from the likes of Pete Cannon, Ben 9mm, Kerem Fraiche and GhostTown.
We kick off with âBrainsâ one of only 3 solo tracks on the CD. A heady piano-loop-laden laid back beat crafted by Illinformed, with Jam spitting observations on the denizens of your average inner city and just what goes on in their twisted little heads.
âOff to clock the shrunken brains that punctuate the squalor yonder/Shotters on the underpasses passing rocks in rotten Poplarâ
As expected, all the members of Contact Play feature on this CD, with Dirty Dike showing up on one of the best tracks on this project âFilet Mignonâ, this is purest  vitriol verses aimed at the âanyone can be an MCâ vibe and those that embody it. âAltitude Sicknessâ with Ronnie Bosh is a literally spaced out beast with some startling production from Ben 9mm.
Also featuring heavily on Gruesome Features are Jamâs fellow High Focus alumni, with three of the Four Owlâs popping up at various points. In particular âWhoâ with Leaf Dog is a seriously good track, with intricate storytelling verses from both Jam and Leaf detailing the struggles of an average wrongâun in a drug deal gone very bad indeed. âEggsâ featuring Dabbla from the legendary LDZ crew kind of acts as a prelude to the upcoming âDead Playersâ project that he, Jam and Producer GhostTown are putting together. With a beat by Philly B, this is a classic that has both MCâs switching from regular into double time and back again with consummate ease.
Itâs obvious that Jam prides himself on his reverence for the best MCâs that this country has produced, thatâs made obvious by the fact that only one MC features on two trackâs on this project; the iconic Chester P. Both âFineâ and âTin Of Wormsâ feature the same creative team of Jam, Chester and Beat Crafter extraordinaire GhostTown. Â Chester has always been known as one of the more complex rhymerâs of the scene and this rings true on both of these tracks, whats most impressive is that Jam doesnât feel out of place whatsoever and the two MCs compliment each otherâs style and flow perfectly. Which results in the two best trackâs on The Gruesome Features.
All in all, although it heads in a wide variety of directions, this is an LP is full of quality. As previously stated by the man himself, this is not an Album but a compilation, so thereâs no overall narrative structure to the project. Despite this, Jam Baxter and High Focus have given us yet another classic display of why they are one of the leading exponents of a creatively diverse and hugely talented Hip Hop scene in the UK. Itâs something that all the UK heads out there should be massively proud of and celebrating. So go cop this CD and get yourself along to one of High Focusâ awesome live events which usually feature the majority of their roster of dope-as-all-hell MCâs and Producers.
You can cop âThe Gruesome Featuresâ direct from High Focus here
Rating 8/10 â Guaranteed High Quality From High Focus