Bullseye with Jesse Thorne is a production of maximum fun.org and is distributed by NPR.

It's Bolzai. I'm Jesse Thorne. The Bay Area rapper Sefeer died last year. He was 54 years old.

If you're a hip-hop fan, maybe you saw a headline about it. Maybe you missed it.

You'd be forgiven, though, if you hadn't heard much beyond that about Saffir.

He wasn't E-40 or Too Short or Tupac, although he and Pock were roommates for a while.

Sefere put out only four full-length albums in his career.

He was on a major label, one run by Quincy Jones, but he signed during a time when frenzied A&R guys were handing out contracts to independent rappers like they were show flyers.

And Sifir never really became famous.

He also didn't really make commercial records.

He almost never had hooks on his songs.

The beats were off kilter and jazzy. His flow was, and I mean, my guest is going to describe it as impenetrable, and I don't think that's inaccurate. But today, we're going to tell you a story about

why Sefir's debut record, Boxcar Sessions from

1994, deserves to be inducted into the canon of great pop culture albums.

That's right. It's Canon Ball.

Here to induct boxcar sessions into the canon is our old friend Nas, Andrew Naznizki.

Nas is an Oakland-based record store owner and hip-hop writer.

He's had bylines in pitchfork, wire, the fader, here at NPR, and most recently in his wonderful newsletter,

Light Sleeper, which is named after a song by Sefier.

Here's Nas.

What's going on? This is Andrew Naznitsky, and the album I want to talk about is Sefier's Boxcar Sessions.

This is Jay Z and Safiair on the 24th track.

Through a radio.

...