The album was selected by French writer Phillippe Robert for his 2008 publication "Great Black Music": an exhaustive tribute of 110 albums including 1954's Lady Sings The Blues by Billie Holiday, the work of Jazz artists Oliver Nelson, Max Roach, John Coltrane; rhythm and blues artists Otis Redding, Ike & Tina Turner, Curtis Mayfield, George Clinton; as well as individual impressions of Fela Kuti, Jimi Hendrix, and Mos Def.

What ties these tracks together besides the musician's lyrical savvy (think scholarly, yet street lean and mean from the Gil Scott-Heron old school) and exceptional ear is almighty rhythm, as a cipher, as a shape-shifting ever-present in a musical meld that touches on everything from the Delta blues and Storyville to vanguard rock, vintage R&B, classic and futuristic pop, tough urban soul, and of course, the rainbow of sounds and beats that is hip-hop.

A strange and unwieldy cast of characters were assembled for this set, including guitarist Dave Tronzo, avant jazz violin legend Leroy Jenkins, Marc Anthony Thompson (aka Chocolate Genius), Brazilian samba guitar genius Vinicius Cantuaria, Rob Hyman from the Hooters (who wrote "Time After Time" for Cyndi Lauper), and backing vocalists such as Irene Datcher, Stephanie McKay, and Helga Davis.

Co-produced with help from Stewart Lerman (Black 47, Dar Williams), Rux assembles a montage of sounds that weave through and around one another in a constant effluvium of urban music that continually references and overwrites its history politically, socially, and spiritually.

Apothecary RX is indeed a prescription: musically it opens wide the current closed scene of alliteration, endless insider referencing, and production conceits by sounding organic and visceral without ever bogging down in its own ambition.