*** 1/2 DEF JEF “Just a Poet With Soul” <i> Delicious Vinyl</i> : <i> Albums are rated on a scale of one star (poor) to five stars (a classic). </i>

Def Jef is a living fossil of soul, a guy who never saw the need to evolve from the kind of primeval hip-hop made more than a decade ago by rappers like the Treacherous Three and the Funky Four + One, who’d rather insinuate his politics suavely like Gil Scott-Heron than hit you over the head with them like KRS-One. Listening to a Def Jef side on KDAY is almost like running into a coelacanth at an aquarium; smooth, almost disco-fied go-go beats standing out among everybody else’s James Brown samples, Jef’s buttery baritone alone among a sea of self-righteous rage.