PINOY RAP NEEDED A SWIFT KICK IN THE arse to pull it out of a long-standing rut.

Francis M went literally underground early last year and fellow pioneers Andrew E and Michael V have long ago moved to non-musical realms. The resulting void has been left for part-time losers and full-time posers to fill.

The good news is that Francis M protégé, Gloc-9, has released his fourth album, “Matrikula” (Sony Music), which marries street beats with ’70s folk-rock themes identified with Asin and Sampaguita. In this record, Gloc-9 keeps it real by relocating his rhymes in the mind-set of a people’s troubadour while his music shuttles between aching ballads and frenetic rockers.

The phantasmagoric trip-hop of “Upuan” should earn honors as the year’s Best Single and top contender for Best Video.

Gloc-9’s remake with Urbandub’s Gabby Alipe of Asin’s “Balita” is as current as the Maguindanao massacre, while “Tinta” reprises an adage Gloc-9 learned from Francis M about writing songs with a purpose: “Pwedeng itim ... asul ... pula/Ang mahalaga’y kung ano ang maiintindihan nila.”

The record begins with a short phone conversation and ends with an extended plea for human kindness rapped around Sampaguita’s “Tao.” In between, Gloc 9 maps out a possible future for rap but in the process, he unwittingly opens a Pandora’s box of festering despair and poverty that has damned this land.

“Matrikula” sounds darn good, but it’s also one of the saddest records you’ll ever hear. Its core spews fire at the roots of what it means to be poor without a future in your own country. It sounds like a review of our collective fate over the past year and the last 400 years before it. Listen to it and weep.