I Wish My Brother George Was Here, the 1991 debut album from Del the Funky (nee Funkee) Homosapien, wasn’t my introduction to Hieroglyphics, but it is, for all intents and purposes, the genesis for the Bay Area crew – a fact that’s being celebrated in Flagstaff on Jan. 22 in what’s being called a 20th anniversary show.

As much as I’d like to claim that I’d been there since the beginning, I came upon Hiero two years later, in 1993, through Souls of Mischief (as I assume many others did, too). I’d never heard of Souls when they opened for A Tribe Called Quest and De La Soul in December 1993 at the long-gone Roxy in Phoenix – and they weren’t even promoted on the ticket stub (one of many stubs/fliers I’ve kept) – but it didn’t take long before I had to have 93 ’til Infinity, an album I bought on cassette (yep, still have that, too). I was just an impressionable 16-year-old with a fresh driver’s license, probably oblivious at the time that I possessed a hip-hop classic.

That set off a level of fandom that, 18 years later, is almost hard to imagine. Souls shouted out the entire Hiero crew – and then some – on 93 ’til, and I did my damnedest to buy records by all of them. By fall of 1995, when I started college, I spent countless hours at Hiero Hoopla, the fan message board at Hiero’s website.

In some ways, I’m jealous of my 16-year-old self. Between Tribe and Hiero, I’m not sure I could ever invest in fandom like that again. Skepticism has replaced my youthful exuberance. I went to show after show, saved fliers, bought T-shirts, scribbled the Hiero logo all over.

But what I can truly appreciate about Hiero now, that maybe I didn’t fully grasp back in the day, is that they defined what it meant to be independent. After a falling-out with Elektra (Del) and Jive (Souls of Mischief and Casual), Hiero regrouped and, relying on their devoted fan base, founded Hiero Imperium, a record label that (in my mind) branded them as innovators. Remember, in 1995, record labels were far more of a necessity than they are today.

I interviewed Tajai of Souls of Mischief nearly three years ago, and this was his take on labels: “We signed a contract with the devil. They’re bankrolling your marketing and promotion to get you out there, so they feel like they can control the creative process. … They feel like they can invade your creative process under the guise of, ‘I have more experience and I know how it’s going to hit at radio.’ We’re lucky to have learned from it. It’s the best thing that happened to me (being on Jive) … We maybe didn’t get paid as much as we should have. But we’re getting 10 to 20 times more now. We’re finally seeing real money.”

And Hiero’s status has been further cemented as part of an art installation by When Art Imitates Life (W.A.I.L.) – Hiero: The Valley of Kings. To celebrate, the group released a new track, the aptly titled Reputation, which features A-Plus, Opio and Casual. Twenty years later, it’s a fitting reminder of Hiero’s place in hip-hop (and my own pantheon of artists).

• Hieroglpyhics | Reputation

At some point – iTunes tells me it was possibly 2006 – I ended up with an mp3 of a track called Roman Holiday by the Gray Kid (aka Steve Cooper), who I guess must have sent it my way with detailed instructions to keep it under wraps. But when Gray Kid unleashed his damn near entire catalog for free download in early 2009, I assumed some tweaked/reworked/newer version of Roman Holiday would find its way to the masses. It was an airy song with an off-kilter rhythm that featured Gray Kid talking out verses and belting out choruses.

Alas, it was nowhere to be found – and for good reason. It was held back so it could be released on The Cost of Living, the debut LP from his synth-funk group Spirit Animal that was released, appropriately, on Election Day.

Says Gray Kid: “It was almost a Gray Kid song. But I left it off Free Music in ’09 at the last second and re-recorded the verses this year (2010) with all of the harmonies so they’d be more sung and less spoken. Then we added live drums, bass and some guitar – Jon Siebels from Eve 6 and Monsters Are Waiting who now runs Sonata Cantata played that. The original tracking was done four years ago.”

Now, after all that, you can finally get the track for free because Gray Kid, who recently relocated from L.A. to the East Coast, was cool enough to let me host it here.

• Spirit Animal | Roman Holiday

It’s also worth nothing that Gray Kid’s Moog/synth madman in Spirit Animal is Computer Jay, who’s also part of the collective known as Master Blazter, along with Dam-Funk and J1.

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It’s sort of impossible to quibble about anything the good folks at Daytrotter are doing – daily downloadable sessions from great bands, insightful writing and a free iPhone app with access to the site’s entire archive.

But if I had to nitpick, there’s just one thing I’d love to see more of at the site: sessions that feature more hip-hop and experimental beat-making artists. Daytrotter’s expansive history includes visits by Aesop Rock, Cadence Weapon and P.O.S., so a precedent has already been set.

And in a nice surprise on Monday, RJD2 added his name to the Daytrotter alum. A 13-minute mix by the Columbus, Ohio-bred sound collagist was recorded in October during Moogfest in Asheville, N.C., and made available as a free download. The best part? No singing! So head on over to Daytrotter to grab it.

In other (two-week-old) news, RJD2 released a free three-song EP for The Glow, a track off his latest album The Colossus. It features remixes from Flosstradamus, Candy Panther and Paolo Palazzo, whose reworking was selected by fans as the winner of a remix contest. The download also includes the video.