The Year Del Did Everything

The year 2000 was extraordinary for Del tha Funkee Homosapien. While most hip-hop artists would consider releasing one album a career milestone, Del dropped two — Both Sides of the Brain under his own name and, with Dan the Automator and Kid Koala, the sci-fi concept masterpiece Deltron 3030. That any artist could deliver two albums of such divergent ambition in a single year is remarkable. That the lesser-celebrated of the two, Both Sides of the Brain, remains a genuinely outstanding record speaks to Del’s extraordinary creative peak at the turn of the millennium.

This review focuses on Both Sides of the Brain — the solo album that tends to get overshadowed by the Deltron juggernaut, and that deserves serious reconsideration as a standalone achievement in Del’s catalog and in the Hieroglyphics story.

The Independent Hiero Era

By 2000, Del was firmly in his Hiero Imperium phase. After a debut on Elektra Records with I Wish My Brother George Was Here (1991) and the follow-up No Need for Alarm (1993), Del had moved with the broader Hiero crew into full independent operation. The 3030 compilation had come out in 1996, establishing Hieroglyphics Imperium as a real label with a real roster. Both Sides of the Brain represents Del fully inside that independent framework — no major label, no commercial pressures, just an artist doing exactly what he wants.

The freedom shows. This is a loose, playful, lyrically dense record that sprawls across genres and moods without worrying too much about cohesion. That’s a feature, not a bug. Del at his most unfiltered is Del at his most interesting.

Production: Del Behind the Boards and Beyond

One of Both Sides of the Brain‘s most underappreciated aspects is its production variety. Del handles significant production himself — his beats are spare, funky, sample-built constructions that feel like they were assembled in a bedroom in the best possible sense. They are idiosyncratic and personal in the way only self-produced albums can be. Alongside Del’s own work, the album features contributions from Domino, Fanatik, and other producers in the Hiero orbit.

The production aesthetic is deliberately lo-fi and hip-hop-first. This is not the lush orchestration of Deltron 3030 (Dan the Automator’s domain) or the polished boom-bap of the Souls of Mischief catalog. This is scrappy, clever, sample-flipping production that puts the MC front and center. Which is exactly right for what Del does on this record.

Standout Tracks

Both Sides of the Brain (Title Track)

The title track is a showcase for Del’s core thesis: he is operating from both hemispheres simultaneously — the analytical and the creative, the technical and the intuitive. The beat is hypnotic and repetitive in a way that forces focus on the lyrics, and Del rewards that focus with dense, allusive rhymes that reveal new layers on repeated listening. It is quintessential Del — smart without being showy, playful without sacrificing substance.

Skull and Crossbones

“Skull and Crossbones” is the album’s most aggressive moment, Del weaponizing his wit in ways that feel sharp rather than gratuitous. The beat has a menace to it that’s unusual in his catalog, and Del meets the energy with some of his most precise technical rapping. It’s a reminder that his reputation for being abstract and philosophical coexists with a capacity for pure MC battle dominance.

Time Is Too Expensive

“Time Is Too Expensive” might be the album’s most emotionally resonant cut. Del turns his philosophical sensibility on the experience of time passing — the cost of distraction, the weight of wasted potential — and delivers it with a seriousness that feels earned rather than preachy. The track also features the kind of relaxed, confident flow that was Del’s signature in this period: precise but never forced, technical but always alive.

Del’s Career Arc: Between No Need for Alarm and Deltron

Both Sides of the Brain sits at an inflection point in Del’s career. No Need for Alarm (1993) had established his particular corner of the Hiero aesthetic — more abstract, more leftfield, more verbally acrobatic than Souls of Mischief’s jazz cool. Deltron 3030 would push him into an entirely different register, a narrative sci-fi concept album that required him to inhabit a character across a full LP’s arc.

Both Sides of the Brain is what Del sounds like between those modes — freed from the narrative constraints of a concept album, drawing on everything he had learned since No Need for Alarm, and operating with complete creative independence. It is, in a meaningful sense, the purest Del solo record in the catalog.

What It Reveals About Del’s Range

The album’s greatest virtue is how fully it demonstrates Del’s multidimensionality as an artist. He can be funny and he can be serious. He can be aggressive and he can be contemplative. He can produce and he can rap, and he does both at a high level simultaneously. He can work in an abstract mode that prioritizes sonic texture and word sound, and he can pivot to direct storytelling when the moment calls for it.

For listeners who came to Del through Deltron, this album is an essential corrective — a reminder that the character-based, concept-album Del is just one facet of a more sprawling, more personal artist. For listeners who have been with Del since the beginning, it is a satisfying document of an artist in full command of his powers, doing exactly what he wants on his own terms.

The Overlooked Record in an Extraordinary Year

The unavoidable fact is that Deltron 3030‘s cultural footprint is larger. The concept was more distinctive, the production more striking, and the timing — right as hip-hop was diversifying rapidly and listeners were hungry for alternatives — was perfect. Both Sides of the Brain was always going to live in that shadow.

But shadows can be deceiving. This is a strong, distinctive, deeply personal record from one of hip-hop’s most idiosyncratic voices. It belongs in any serious conversation about the Hieroglyphics catalog, and it deserves to be heard on its own terms rather than merely as context for what Del did the same year.

Stream and Support

Find Del’s catalog including Both Sides of the Brain at hieroglyphics.bandcamp.com. For the full story of Hieroglyphics and its artists, visit hieroglyphics.com/about/.