​After 2009's landmark Brooklynati (immortalized on YIMBY's Best Local Music of 2009 Mixtape and a slew of excellent solo releases, Tanya Morgan, New York's greatest living heirs to De La Soul is Dead, have finally returned. Their nine-track EP ARMY Edition (out November 22) comes in a "a transitional period" for the group: Founding member Ilyas has left the fold and TM is moving forward, navigating the new hip-hop model as an unsigned duo (their next stop is an album with Bronx rapper/producer 6th Sense).

"Brooklynati was the album we were trying to make this whole time, so for me I felt like, 'OK, now what?' says Von Pea. "At the top of this year, everything was different. It's like, graduating college and moving to a new city. You have to make this new beginning on your own. The best news is we now have an answer to the 'OK now what?' and the first answer is this EP." First single, the breezy "Whatever That's Mine," pushes ever-forward with a boinging bassline and Brazilian-tinged sample-work reminiscent of Dilla's Pharcyde compositions, while the pair tirelessly back-and-forth about staying on path, no matter what.

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Image via Darrell Bell

​Hip-hop is the world's most brazenly capitalist genre of music. If Jay-Z's not talking about playing Monopoly with real cash, then Kanye West's tweeting about the cherub-motifed Persian rugs and golden goblets he's just scored at Fishs Eddy. But while certain rotund rap types would have you believe they were running extensive criminal enterprises before they decided to pursue a career in rhymed verse, the truth is more mundane. Most rappers suffer the rite of working demoralizing dead-end jobs while attempting to jump-start their careers and clock up music industry cash, whether it's the Wu-Tang Clan's Method Man greeting tourists at the Statue of Liberty, Biggie bagging groceries at a Met Foods supermarket, or Kanye's mush-mouthed rapping friend Consequence ringing up monochromatic sweater vests at GAP. So when Fat Joe--who just so happens to have released a new album last week--opened his heart to us about sweating it out as a security guard one summer at a sneaker store, we decided to round up a whole batch of New York City's hardest-working rappers--including Prince Paul, El-P, Joell Ortiz, and Tanya Morgan's Von Pea and Donwill--and ask them to talk about their old temp-job blues. Their wretched stories are below.

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