As one of the more visible members in the revolving cast of Wu-satellite emcees, Brooklyn’s Killah Priest has always been a sort of acquired taste among dilettantes, inspiring wild enthusiasm or yawn-inducing boredom, depending on who you ask. I’ve always felt that the man never received his due; as the story goes, Priest would have usurped Masta Killa’s place in the Clan had he not fallen asleep in the studio during the recording “Da Mystery of Chessboxin’.” I’d certainly rather hear him than Cappadonna or even U-God any time of day, but Priest’s Achilles’ heel has always been his inability to assert his presence on a given track. Surrounded by the contrasting technicolor personalities of the other Clan members, Killah Priest’s low-key demeanor inevitably fell by the shadows. Yet in the history of hip hop, few have wholly embodied the expression “droppin’ science” as he has; pay close attention to his lyrics and it doesn’t take long to recognize the man’s brilliance.

All of which is to say that Killah Priest is the quintessential “rapper’s rapper.” It was on GZA’s insistence that Priest’s solo cut “B.I.B.L.E.” conclude Liquid Swords (1995) despite RZA’s protests that the track was “too positive.” It was then that fans began to take notice of him, further supplementing his guest spots on Gravediggaz‘ Six Feet Deep (1994) and Ol’ Dirty Bastard’s Return to the 36 Chambers: The Dirty Version (1995). “From Then Till Now,” taken from his Geffen debut Heavy Mental (1998), is one of the strongest examples of Killah Priest’s gruff cadence, dense wordplay, and advanced metaphorical proficiency. I’m hardly an expert on his recent material, but nothing I’ve heard by him since has topped his performance here.

In a track-by-track analysis with HipHopGame on Heavy Mental, Priest explains how he and Ghostface fiercely competed for Y-Kim’s “From Then Till Now” beat until Priest eventually won out because Ghost already had enough material for his first solo record. One listen and it’s easy to understand why everyone was fiending to spit over this production. Y-Kim exquisitely blends subtle shades of sound into a wondrous tapestry, connotating lonely African spirituals, martial arts soundtracks, and plenty in between; it’s the finest output from any Wu-Element producer that I can recall. Adding to the track’s unique character is the fact that the mix is curiously lopsided, with the drums tilting more toward the right channel as Priest’s vocals dominate the left.

Lyrically, Priest tackles the familiar state-of-Black-America topic on “From Then Till Now,” yet constructs a detailed examination of its history, a past versus present comparison filled with strikingly vivid imagery and complex metaphors, all filtered through his trademark synthesis of Judeo-Christian mythology and various African and Eastern systems. A brief dialogue with weed carrier (?) Full Moon about Priest’s recent goings-on opens the track until he begins:

Guns, shootouts, and crack sales
Black males who pack jails, trapped in hell
No peace, cold streets, surrounded by police this whole week
Buildings with no heats
No lights, the gas pipes with slow leaks
Dogfights and lowlife throw dice the whole night
Thieves creepin’ in the midnight evenings
We saw through the misty regions

Priest immediately establishes the setting by describing his nightmarish urban environment, a wasteland of cold, decrepit tenement buildings haunted by gun violence, gambling, and drug use. Phonetically, his usage of compound rhymes here is staggering, often packing four pairs into a single bar, best demonstrated by the third line (“no peace/cold streets/police/whole week”). Musically, Y-Kim shifts the setting from a sole trumpet line during the introductory conversation to what sounds like a menacing, pitch-dropped piano as Priest enters, accurately complimenting his subject matter. At the end of the eight bars the atmosphere changes as his voice increases in intensity:

Go to your house, take a vow for the demons
Moonlit, the lunar eclipse
Prophet stands in the midst of the seven candlesticks
I can’t take it
Beauty that was once sacred is now getting facelifts, fake tits, and fake lips
Cold embraces, memory erases from the slaveships

Priest begins his religious imagery here, juxtapositioning the nocturnal, witch-like occult with a depiction of the kinara, the candle-holder signifying the Seven Principles of Kwanzaa. He then cries out in frustration, chastising the modern culture of artificial enhancement in place of his sisters’ natural beauty. Referencing “cold embraces” in “slaveships,” Priest ponders on the effectiveness Black history awareness, a “memory erased” from the current mentality. The compound rhyming here of “take it/sacred/facelifts/fake tits/fake lips” is notable.

My princess, I used to spot her from a distance
Holding my infant, burning incense
The moment intent for her to step into my (?) wife tents (?)
Now we step in precincts

While ruminating on plastic surgery and Black consciousness, our narrator suddenly recalls a past vision of his beautiful wife and young child, “burning incense” as he spots them from afar. Fast-forward to the present, and the couple are being escorted into a police station.

For your ebony prince, the smell of frankincense
Once treated like a pharoah with royal apparel
Anointed with myrrh and aloe
We used to wallow amongst the mallows
We had herd sheep and cattle, now we battle

Continuing the past/present comparisons, Priest describes his previous incarnation as a god among men, specifiying on the various exotic aromas surrounding him. Once again, he compares the riches of his ancestors with the conflicts of the present with the line, “now we battle.”

Used to pass over brooks of Qe’dron
Towers of Lebanon, the pool of Gechron
We used to sing songs upon Mount Hebron
How is gold turned to bronze and shhh…
How is gold turned to bronze?

The Judeo-Christian imagery appears with aplomb here as Priest begins dropping references to the Biblical locations that his ancestors inhabited. The “gold to bronze” line, which he repeats for effect, delineates the recession of his culture’s material wealth and mentality over the centuries. Y-Kim layers a mournful string sample under the mix to further emphasize these lost ancient regions of the world.

We was the wisest and the richest, now we turned to snitches
Women turned to bitches
In the time of harvest we was the smartest
Worshipped wisdom like the goddess
Now we act retarted, forsook the wisdom of the fathers

His voice growing more passionate and fervid, Killah Priest openly decries the sorrowful decline of his people, as kings and queens have become “snitches” and “bitches,” and wisdom and intelligence have all but been lost. In addition, the generational insight passed down from the elders has been lost forever.

We used to have a thousand flagons of wine
In Palestine there we’d drink Ballentine and rage up in the violent mind
We used to have a hundred measures of oil,
Eighty measures of wheat and barley
We lived godly, listening to Bob Marley
Before the devils robbed me, chasing us through the African safaris.

Again, Priest continues to elaborate on the past, yet it is interesting to note that the units of oil and barley mentioned here add up to a telling 180, perhaps to imply that his people have wandered 180 degrees from their former splendor. The verse concludes somewhat abruptly with a harrowingly visual mention of the slave trade before the chorus; one suspects that Priest wrote this all as one long piece and determined the place of the chorus after the fact. He continues along this method of rhyme pattern for the briefer second verse, but it is the first that is infinitely more captivating, in no small measure due to Y-Kim’s intuitive guiding of the backing track to the lyrical content.

“From Then Till Now” – Killah Priest 3:44 (Heavy Mental, Geffen 1998)