Oct 14, 2026 · Album review · 10 min read

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Hieroglyphics “All Said and Done” Review: Oakland’s Crew Returns After 13 Years

Del the Funky Homosapien, Casual, Pep Love and Souls of Mischief on one self-produced album, 13 years after The Kitchen. Here is the story of All Said and Done, the best songs, what the critics said and where to get the vinyl.

Thirteen years after The Kitchen, Oakland’s Hieroglyphics are back with a full album. All Said and Done arrived on September 3, 2026 through the crew’s own label, Hieroglyphics Imperium: 16 tracks, 56 minutes, produced in-house by A-Plus, Domino and DJ Toure, with every MC of the collective on the record. Del the Funky Homosapien, Casual, Pep Love and all four Souls of Mischief (A-Plus, Opio, Phesto and Tajai) pass the mic like it is still 1998.

It is a rare thing in rap: a crew that has been together for more than three decades, still independent, still owning its masters, still making a record where nobody sounds like a guest. Here is the story, the songs, what the critics said and where to get it on wax.

Who are Hieroglyphics?

Hieroglyphics started in Oakland at the turn of the 90s around Del the Funky Homosapien, who also drew the crew’s famous three-eyed logo. The collective made its first appearance on “Burnt”, the B-side of Del’s 1991 single “Mistadobalina”. Then came a run that shaped West Coast underground rap: Del’s No Need for Alarm and Souls of Mischief’s 93 ’til Infinity in 1993, and Casual’s Fear Itself in 1994.

When the major-label deals fell apart, the crew did what few rappers did back then: it built its own label, Hieroglyphics Imperium, and sold music straight to fans through its website, years before Bandcamp existed. The group albums followed: 3rd Eye Vision (1998), Full Circle (2003) and The Kitchen (2013). The crew itself calls The Kitchen a mixtape, so press materials describe All Said and Done as its third official full-length album. Wikipedia and most reviews count The Kitchen and call this one the fourth.

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Hieroglyphics – The Way That It Be (Official Music Video)

How All Said and Done was made

The album was recorded over nine months in 2025 and is fully self-produced. A-Plus, Domino and DJ Toure built the beats, with live bass from multi-instrumentalist Jim Greer on three tracks and scratches from DJ D-Styles of the Beat Junkies on “Drum Talk”. The engineer Starski mixed and mastered the whole record, and the cover is a hand-drawn piece by Shomari Smith: a microphone, a turntable arm and the three-eyed logo turned into a face, framed by a Greek key border.

The rollout started on May 15, 2026 with “Drum Talk”, a short, all-out lyrical session with Casual, Phesto, Tajai and Del. Del was clearly enjoying himself: he told Spitfire Hip Hop that the way the project was coming together was “the best-case scenario”. The crew had just finished its international Hiero 360 Tour.

The title is not a farewell. According to the release notes, Casual said it reflects the skill level the group wants to be remembered for, and he named “Uplifted”, a song that tells the crew’s own story, as his personal favorite.

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Hieroglyphics – Drum Talk (Official Audio)

Hiero Day and the tour

The album landed days before Hiero Day, the crew’s annual Labor Day festival in the Bay Area. The 2026 edition took place on September 7 at The Midway in San Francisco, with Killer Mike, DJ Jazzy Jeff and Mereba on the bill and a Hieroglyphics set built around the new album, according to KQED. This year the festival also traveled: a Los Angeles date at the Hollywood Palladium on August 30 and a first Canadian edition. The crew closed its North American run promoting the record at Hiero Day.

Track by track: the highlights

• “Mosaico: Suite 1”: the opener, with Casual, Opio, Tajai and Del. Underground Hip Hop Blog reads it as a song about integrity in hip hop. Its partner, “Mosaico: Suite 2”, sits near the end, and the two suites give the album a shape.
• “Eyes Wide Shut”: A-Plus, Del and Pep Love take aim at online hate and fake criticism.
• “Hard Numbers”: the five-MC posse cut that several reviewers, and plenty of fans on Bandcamp, pick as the best track. Jim Greer’s bass gives it real weight.
• “Drum Talk”: the lead single, barely over two minutes, with D-Styles cutting between verses. Short, but nowhere near filler.
• “The Way That It Be”: Casual, Pep Love and Tajai, and the song chosen for the official video.
• “Uplifted”: the whole crew on one song about where they came from. Optimistic without preaching, and Casual’s favorite.
• “Third Eye Robot (Kill ’Em All)”: Hiero takes on artificial intelligence in its own abstract way. A nice wink at 3rd Eye Vision in the title.
• “Hiero on the Scrolls”: Tajai, Del and Casual trading bars about the crew’s legacy.
• “Crescent Moon, Velvet Sky”: a smooth, soulful closer with Casual and all four Souls of Mischief.

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Hieroglyphics – Hard Numbers (Official Audio)

All Said and Done tracklist

Listen to All Said and Done

Spotify

Apple Music

What the critics say

• Hip Hop Golden Age (8.5/10): calls it “a genuinely impressive late-career album” and the crew’s strongest full-group effort since 3rd Eye Vision, which remains the benchmark. It praises the dusty samples, jazz touches and crisp drums, and how the MCs share space instead of competing.
• Underground Hip Hop Blog (8/10): ranks it second of the four group albums, behind 3rd Eye Vision and ahead of Full Circle and The Kitchen. Its main reservation is that the boom bap beats are a little less adventurous than on The Kitchen, but it loves the abstract, conscious bars.
• HHHeadz: reads the title as a deliberate reckoning and stresses that this is a complete album, not a quick reunion EP.
• Album of the Year: no critic average yet, but the user score sits in the low 80s, with fans calling it a near-instant classic.

As with most independent rap records, the big outlets have not reviewed it, and, as far as we can find, the album has not entered the Billboard charts. That says more about how the industry covers veterans than about the music.

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Hieroglyphics – Uplifted (Official Audio)

Vinyl, CD and where to buy

The official store, ShopHiero, sells limited CD and vinyl editions at $25, each with a digital download. The store warns that physical shipments were delayed by the pressing plant, and record shops list the 2xLP for October 30, 2026. If you just want the files, the crew sells the album on Bandcamp, including a 24-bit download, which sends more money straight to the artists than streaming does.

A producer’s take

As a beatmaker, what I like most about All Said and Done is how much room the beats leave. With seven or eight MCs on a song, the production cannot fight the vocals. A-Plus, Domino and DJ Toure keep the loops simple and warm, and let the drums and the bass do the work. That is a good rule for any posse cut: the more voices, the fewer elements.

The second lesson is the live bass. Jim Greer plays on “Hard Numbers”, “Drum Talk” and “Uplifted”, and those are exactly the songs that hit hardest. A real bass line on top of a sampled loop adds movement and low end that a static sample rarely gives you. If you produce on an MPC like I do, try it: chop the sample, then replace or double its bass with a played part. Our guide to the best Akai MPC covers the machines that make this easy.

Finally, the scratches. D-Styles’ cuts on “Drum Talk” work like a fourth MC. Scratching a vocal phrase between verses is one of the oldest tricks in boom bap, and it still makes a short song feel complete.

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Hieroglyphics – All Said and Done (Official Audio)

Verdict

All Said and Done does not try to sound young, and that is its strength. It is a crew of friends from Oakland, most of them in their fifties, rapping with real chemistry over warm, uncluttered boom bap, and talking about legacy, independence and staying true without turning it into a nostalgia trip. It will not replace 3rd Eye Vision as the classic, but “Hard Numbers”, “Drum Talk”, “Uplifted” and “Crescent Moon, Velvet Sky” stand next to the best of the Hiero catalog.

If you like this lane, keep going with Black Milk’s CEREMONIAL, Apollo Brown and Skyzoo’s Luxury Tax and another veterans’ summit, The Godbody LP. Souls of Mischief also show up on “Clean Getaway”, picked in our New Hip Hop This Week Vol. 002.