ESSAY
Funcrusher Plus
Company Flow’s debut came out on Rawkus on 22 July 1997. El-P, Bigg Jus and Mr. Len had already put the Funcrusher EP out themselves in 1995.
- format
- Essay
- volume
- 7
- date
- Jul 22, 2026
- author
- CJ Archer
- places
- New York
- artists
- Company Flow, El-P
- words
- 317 words · 1 min
Funcrusher Plus is the debut album by Company Flow, released by Rawkus on 22 July 1997. El-P, Bigg Jus and Mr. Len recorded it between 1994 and 1997 at Ozone and at No Mystery in New York, and the group produced it. An EP called Funcrusher had come out in 1995, which is where the reputation among people who traded tapes actually started. The album singles from that chapter are 8 Steps to Perfection in 1996 and Blind in 1997. Little Johnny from the Hospitul, an instrumental record, followed in 1999. A Definitive Jux reissue came later. The 1997 Rawkus album is the object.
El-P’s beats are dense on purpose: scrap, siren, drums that knock and also scrape. There is very little empty room, and the rhymes do not smooth the beat out. Bigg Jus and El-P trade lines like people who have decided a hook would be a concession. Mr. Len is the DJ in a group that did not need a DJ to look like a group on a poster. Independent hip-hop in 1997 could mean a smaller budget doing the major’s job. This record sounds like a refusal of the job. The EP had already proved they could press something themselves. Rawkus gave the full length a door without sanding the noise down.
If you only know El-P from the Cannibal Ox album he produced four years later, or from Run the Jewels much later than that, start here. The Cold Vein is spacious by comparison. Funcrusher Plus is the cramped version: three people, two studios, a label that was then a new independent, and a title carried over from a tape-circuit EP. The reissue on Def Jux is a second life. The Rawkus pressing is the one that made the decision public.