Artifacts

The Artifacts emerged as a Newark, NJ-based hip-hop duo devoted to reviving earlier stylistic priorities. Their work spotlights MCing, DJing, and especially graffiti writing—often called bombing—with both Tame One and El the Sensai demonstrating command of those three practices. The pair’s contrasting approaches meshed effectively, earning their graf-rap an appreciative underground following while extending the New Jersey lineage established by Redman and Lords of the Underground. In 1994 the duo issued the single “Wrong Side of The Tracks,” an underground classic that announced their bombing activities along with their Jersey roots; the full-length Between a Rock and a Hard Place appeared shortly afterward, its taut, funky beats giving shape to the duo’s B-boy posture. The 1996 successor That’s Them offered similar material yet fared less well with critics, overshadowed by the rising dominance of Jay-Z and Nas’s kingpin gangster stance. The Artifacts represented hard-nosed backpack hip-hop during the reflective peak of hip-hop’s golden age, prior to the genre’s mainstream surge and the intensification of gangster hardcore that preceded the fatal shootings of Tupac Shakir and Notorious B.I.G. The partnership dissolved in 1997, after which each member began issuing solo singles.