Demonz N My Sleep

The California Bay Area was flooded with underground gangsta rappers by the early 2000s, Woodie being one of the more impressive. Many of the Northern Cali rappers had skills but most were hampered by poor production quality. Not Woodie, however. He not only had the skills; he also had impressive production quality — a street-level indie rapper with major-label sound quality. Woodie self-produces most of the tracks on Demonz N My Sleep, and it's debatable what's more impressive, his tracks or his rhymes. He summons an impressive array of sounds out of his limited gear on this album, crafting a distinctly West Coast hardcore rap album — lots of synth flourishes, many of them eerie and creepy. In addition, his rhymes are distinctly Bay Area — gangsta, quick, lucid, and harsh. Overall, Woodie may not be your prototypical rap star and may have the cards stacked against him in the major-label-dominated rap game, but his skills are overly evident on Demonz N My Sleep. Yet another Bay Area rapper who doesn't get the acclaim he probably should.