If you've read a sentence about the rapper called Joey Bada$$, than you already know he's 17. Writers love to point this out, as it makes the Brooklyn-born rapper's freaky eloquence seem freakier, his old-guy rap taste (Lord Finesse and Big L, D.I.T.C. and Boot Camp Clik, Wu-Tang Clan) seem statistically unlikely. But Joey's musical interests should surprise no one. Worshiping the music of an era you didn't grow up in, after all, is a time-honored ritual of teenhood. You will never find a more righteously militant musical conservative than the seventeen-year-old who has just discovered Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, or Wu-Tang Clan.

What is freaky about Joey, however, is his preternatural focus and poise: no one his age has a right to sound this confident. "Survival Tactics," off of Joey's new tape 1999, isn't the sound of a bunch of over-excited kids who just discovered "Bucktown"; it's a flawless piece of rap revivalism, made with the care and calm of lifelong professionals. The martial high-step of the rhyme schemes, the slick, cypher-style quotables ("I spit more than speech impediments"), the beat drops, the asphyxiated horns-- the song is sharp, clean, and fierce enough to claim its sacred texts as peers.