Best hip-hop tag team

Local hip-hop MCs Akrobatik and Mr. Lif couldn't be more different. Akrobatik is a big, burly guy with short, spiky braids, a bear-like physical presence, and a clean-cut rhyme style that's reminiscent of old-school legends like KRS-One: sharp syllables and spiky angles. Mr. Lif is a little guy with thick, tumbling dreadlocks, a humble demeanor, and a tripped-out flow that sounds beamed in from another galaxy. But whenever they hit the stage together, Akro and Lif mind-meld into a ferocious tag team with inhuman capabilities for rhyme and reason. Spewing spontaneous freestyles, teasing the crowd, and pushing each other to new levels of lyrical complexity, they're a near-perfect rap duo. "The Perceptionists," as they call themselves, have committed this artistic relationship to wax, both on Mr. Lif's Enters the Colossus (Def Jux) and on Akrobatik's The EP (Detonator Records). But in both cases, the collaboration is limited to one track -- far too brief.