Word Up

"[People] don't take it too seriously," Dem says about using terms like internet ho. "They let it roll off their back. I've never felt any backlash as far as people saying, 'You don't treat women well.' I think we deliver it in such a way that people can't even be mad at us for talking that way about a woman."

There are other ways in which they mean to be taken quite seriously, however. Battle rappers, Dem says, "have this horrible stigma that they can't make music." So for the mixtape album, they enlisted some of Florida's hottest producers and rappers. Res, a local MC and producer, helped WP with the technical aspects of recording and added lyrics to "Greatest Flow on Earth." Doc Sus, now an up-and-coming producer in NYC, produced the album's signature cut, "World Famous." Bonus, of the local group Brokensound Blvd, pitched in on the hard-hitting "Unstoppable" and produced the aggressive "Raw." But the oddest and most rewarding help (for the listener with a dark sense of humor, at least) comes during the album's skits.

"That's all Chris Titone," says Dem of his friend and fellow Stoneman Douglas alum. "He's kind of a genius."

"Crazy" is one of two skits anchoring this mixtape to a steady position of unapologetic crudeness. In the other one, "Internet Ho Blocker," they get as far from political correctness as possible without being handcuffed.

But the guys of Word Perfect aren't laughing yet. They have no delusions of grandeur. Besides investing in the group's work, both Dem and Wise are working on solo projects and cross their fingers that those future albums plus A Major Motion Mixtape will help open doors that are currently closed to most underground MCs.

"I hope to not be living in a box," says Dem with a modest chuckle when asked about the future. "I would like to be touring. I would like to be working on more projects, with different artists... making a living off of hip-hop."

They hope their careers will catapult off the Best of Both Worlds concert at Murphys Downtown on August 25, which will pit Word Perfect and Brokensound Blvd against rock bands Horizon Fall and Remain Calm.

"It's original. It's conceptual. It's presented in a different way," Dem says of a Word Perfect show. "Hands-down, in South Florida, we put on the livest show for a hip-hop duo. It's high energy. It's high impact. [It's] the best $5 you're gonna spend — and another five to get the CD."

He laughs, yeah, but he knows with enough five-dollar increments he'll be able to quit his day job someday, and Word Perfect can take a seat among hip-hop's ruling class.