Rah Digga returns with a “Classic”

Highly regarded as one of the best female emcees to ever rip a mic, Rah Digga is set to return after a DECADE with her sophomore album, Classic, on September 14th.

After years of riding with Busta Rhymes and his Flipmode Squad, her debut solo album (2000′s Dirty Harriet), and an unproductive stint at J Records (whom shelved her 2004 album Everything Is a Story), Digga finally decided to strike out on her own and secured herself a deal with NY-based, independent label Raw Koncept. It was this deal that also led her to the album’s sole producer, hip-hop veteran Nottz (Busta Rhymes, Snoop Dogg, Kanye West).

“It’s all Nottz production and all Rah Digga rhyming,” she told XXL Magazine back in March. Although it wasn’t their first time working together (Nottz produced five tracks on Dirty Harriet), Digga relates, “Lucas [from Raw Koncept] said you need to let Nottz do the whole album. And we argued and went back and forth, you know, I just couldn’t see it at the time…As we started recording, by the time I got to that tenth song, it got to the point where I couldn’t even hear anybody else on the album.”

With just those 10 tracks, Classic is a gritty display of boom bap beats mixed with Digga’s rugged rhymes. While the title could be considered an audacious move after years of silence, she couldn’t help but give the album a title that it deserves.

“I named it that because to me, it’s classic hip-hop at its finest, what everybody misses and what everybody claims they wish they heard more of,” she told hip-hop blog The BoomBox. “It’s just straight raw rhymes, raw beats, not saturated with guest appearances–it’s just authentic hip-hop.

“It’s definitely an album that [fans] can appreciate and has that classic ’90s hip-hop that everybody misses or you just don’t really get to hear on a mainstream level…If it achieves mainstream success, I’m all for it. But I’m not compromising my sound or my style to do it on purpose.”

Album track list after the jump.

Via MCP.

1. The Book of Rashia
2. Check Me Boo
3. This Ain’t No Lil’ Kid Rap
4. Straight Spittin’ IV
5. Classic
6. Solidified
7. Feel Good
8. Viral
9. Back It Up
10. You Got It