A Bay Area duo that got together in 1994, Sacred Hoop is Luke Sick on the mic and Vrse Murphy on the beats. Over the years, Sacred Hoop has worked with some of the area's top-shelf DJ talent (Quest, Marz, Raw B) and dropped albums like Sleepover, Go Hogwild, and Bring Me the Head of Sexy Henrietta. Semi-popular regionally (especially among the Gurp City contingent), the duo is under the radar pretty much everywhere else, though its music is consistently unique and refreshingly bugged-out. Retired was originally released in 1998 and is probably Sacred Hoop's best-known work to date. It's an eight-song effort that would fit perfectly into your indie-rap collection somewhere between Z-Man, Edan, Atmosphere, and Deltron. With unpredictable, sample-based production and left-field wordplay that mixes self-deprecating humor with shoutouts to various intoxicants, wild storytelling, and unconventional flows, it's definitely too weird for some. But if you're looking for something completely different, Sacred Hoop has you covered. Check out "Burgundy," "Bathtub Gin," and "Burn Drunk Hours."