What’s the best way to build hype for an album? Some would say gathering a bunch of your favorite contemporaries in some secluded Wyoming getaway and making sure TMZ speculates the ins and outs of the forthcoming tunes.

If that’s not your style, then actually releasing music before even more music drops might be an effective strategy. MED (aka Medaphoar) and Guilty Simpson chose the latter, coalescing for a Detroit-Los Angeles collaboration that oozes Dilla-phonics.

Courtesy of Bang Ya Head records, MED and Simpson present Loyalty, a 10-track EP that speaks to the same underground, jazz-rap spirit championed by J Dilla, Slum Village, The Pharcyde, and every other act that wore Mr. Yancey’s style on their sleeve.

Students from the age of rhyming over instrumentals, MED and Simpson are kind enough to give hip-hop heads some studio fodder – four of the 10 cuts are pure instrumentals or acapella, giving aspiring rappers and producers a professional-level starting ground.

Featuring production from Black Milk, MNDSNG, Exile and Preme, the tape isn’t bogged down with heavy, metaphorical spiritual references or irate diss tracks. MED and Simpson come through as vessels of an age gone by, in which the goal ended at dying “fly, all for a piece of the pie”.

Purchase Loyalty via Bang Your Head’s Bandcamp site.