First Listen: Dr. Octagon, 'Moosebumps: An Exploration Into Modern Day Horripilation'

When rapper Kool Keith and producer Dan the Automator recorded the original album in 1996, it felt like they invented a sub-genre of "weird rap." Keith already had a () large reputation as a wizard of non-sensical rhymes dating back to this days with New York's Ultramagnetic MCs. Dan was a well-respected, but low-profile, beatmaker in the Bay Area, whose debut 1989 single was a tongue-in-cheek, proto-horrorcore 12" entitled "." However eclectic on their own, both men were outliers in a hip-hop era that was still largely self-serious, eager to prove itself to mainstream detractors, whether via the cinematic street imagery of , and or the sonic sophistication of , and the 's .