A bold, bristling, biting bit of 90s hip-hop, Mic Geronimo's The Natural if it had been released just a year or two later, would certainly have gone down as a classic of the genre. It was studded with cameos by future stars — among them Jay-Z, DMX and, uh, Ja Rule. It had the kind of grimy production that many of its contemporaries, like Nas and the Wu-Tang Clan, would ride to success. And Geronimo's flow is sturdy and nimble, making up in ruggedness what it may lack in inventiveness. Geronimo's career fizzled despite (or perhaps because of) a latter affiliation with Diddy, but The Natural today sounds just as uncompromising as ever.