Jesse Dangerously and Ambeez of Backburner IS The Library Steps! The duo is named in remembrance of the now demolished stone stairs of the Halifax Memorial Library entrance, where among a loose and ragtag assortment of the city’s rappers they would gather across generations every Friday as the doors locked, to freestyle, beatbox, and play tapes in a cipher called Public Rhyme Distribution. Under their fingernails, no microscope is needed to detect the DNA of golden era rapper/producer teams like Pete Rock & CL Smooth, Gang Starr, a gentler Beatnuts, or any group that was part of Native Tongues or Hieroglyphics. Just as present are the influences of turn-of-the-century underground boundary pushers like Sage Francis, Aesop Rock, MF Doom, and Buck 65, and for that matter, just about everyone who was on Roc-A-Fella at its peak. Refracted here, those chosen ancestors and more recombinate into a hip-hop that challenges, from unexpected angles, traditional modes and narratives of masculinity. They are your rap dads, and they just may be your real dads, too.