V.E.R.A. Clique's Fresh Out The Box CD is available at Amoeba Music and other stores but you can also buy it on BART if you're lucky to run into one of its members selling the CD on a random BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) train.

The Oakland based group, whose album track "The Movement" is featured on the recent BOMB Hip-Hop Compilation Vol. 2 (also avail at Amoeba), are a talented hard-working hip-hop crew whose pre- Oakland roots date back to 2002 to Bend, Oregon where the group's Anderson Ray and Mascen Apollo first crossed paths at a hip-hop event. Fast forward a few years and both hip-hoppers had moved south to the Bay Area where they formed the group V.E.R.A. Clique, with the name standing for Very Essence of Real Artists.

I first learned about V.E.R.A. Clique only recently and in a most unusual way -- while sitting on the Bay Point / Pittsburg to San Francisco BART, somewhere near the MacArthur stop, Mascen Apollo of the group walked by dirt hustlin his crew's CD to BART passengers, all the while keeping a watchful eye out for the BART police, who not only frown upon any business being conducted on BART, but will arrest perpetrators for doing so. Over the years I have seen Bay Area hip hop artists sell their CDs or cassettes at various public places. In bygone years, members of Hobo Junction or Mystik Journeymen and their extended Living Legends crew would often be found on Durant or Telegraph (outside Amoba) selling their cassettes. But selling on the BART train was a novel approach to hip-hop marketing or distribution that I had not witnessed before. Hence I was anxious to find out more about it so I recently caught up with the V.E.R.A. Clique member Mascen Apollo to ask him about slinging hip-hop on BART.

1) Q-Tip The Renaissance (Motown/Universal)

2) Jurassic 5 11th Anniversary Deluxe Reissue (Decon)

3) Jedi Mind Tricks A History Of Violence (Babygrande)

4)  88 Keys The Death of Adam (Decon)

5) Black Milk Tronic (Fat Beats Records)

Thanks to Luis at the San Francisco Amoeba Music store for this week's Top Five Hip-Hop chart with the number one slot occupied by Q-Tip with his great new album The Renaissance (far superior to his last solo effort), which includes one track produced by the late J-Dilla. Click here to check out Porkchop's review of the A Tribe Called Quest member's recent San Francisco performance at Mezzanine as part of the Bounce Tour last week. In the number two slot is the Jurassic 5 CD & DVD retrospective package on Decon, 11th Anniversary Deluxe Re-Issue, which includes J5's original self-titled album in its entirety plus fifteen unreleased tracks, as well as a DVD of the documentary The Jurassic Period which was directed by Jason Goldwatch.