Blue Scholars

"The blue is for the color of the collar of my mother and my father plus the scholars that we be," rhymes Geologic on "Bruise Brothers," aptly explicating both name and ideology of the indie-hop duo he and DJ Sabzi constitute. The Blue Scholars are the thinking working man's hip hop crew, spitting socialist rhymes that are whip-smart but not impenetrable over funked-up old-school beats that illustrate both the group's commitment to classicism and the reason they've been garnering Seattle the kind of attention it hasn't had since Sir Mix-A-Lot avowed his predilection for sizeable derrieres.