Those who are familiar with Detroit underground MC Esham’s typically gore-splattered 1992 double-album opus Judgement Day will have an acid-rap flashback when they listen to Beanie Siegel’s The Solution, out the 11th on Roc-A-Fella. Track ten, a Dre & Vidal production titled “The Day,” samples Black Sabbath’s “War Pigs,” off 1971’s Paranoid. What’s kind of surprising is the manner in which the song is used. It is used almost exactly (if not exactly) the same way it was used in Esham’s “Judgement Day” — much more creatively than it was used in Ice-T’s “Rhyme Pays,” maximizing the tumbling, crunching, white-knuckled fury. Somewhat tellingly, a pre-release leak of the album had “The Day” listed as “Judgment Day ft. Ozzy Osbourne.”

Outside the Midwest, the vast majority of those who know about Esham have Eminem to blame. Eminem acknowledged the Unholy as an influence and even feuded with him at one point. Otherwise, Esham is unknown, though those who know Kool Keith’s Spankmaster from front to back would disagree. Regardless, maybe it’s only a matter of time before some mainstream beatmakers pick up on other rap relics from Detroit, like Kaos & Mystro’s Outcast, Vol. 1 or Detroit’s Most Wanted’s Tricks of the Trades, Vol. 2.

We don’t have a snippet of “The Day” at the ready, but you can check the Esham track and imagine Beanie relating a rather Esham-like disturbed fever dream (hmm). We also have some Ice-T and Black Sabbath:

• Esham - Judgement Day
• Ice-T - Rhyme Pays
• Black Sabbath - War Pigs

And there is some peculiar likeness between the artwork for The Solution and that of Esham’s 1991 EP Erotic Poetry. Again, hmm: