You can now add West Coast collective Hieroglyphics to the list of hip-hoppers who've started their own shirts-and-denim clothing line. While the apparel made its debut last year at a fashion convention in Las Vegas, the "Freshly Dipped Tour," featuring most of the Hiero teammates, will be the first chance for people to see, touch and maybe even try on the clothing.

"It's gonna be the launch, the kickoff, the unveiling of the jeans, kinda," says longtime Hiero/Souls of Mischief member Opio. "We just felt like the best way to kinda, like, launch it was with the tour. And just kinda do, like, a grass-roots campaign and take it across the country, let everybody check 'em out and stuff like that."

So, will this be a combination hip-hop/fashion show, complete with models strutting the catwalk (or, in this case, club stage) as Hiero members spit verses?

"Oh no, it's not gonna be, like, models. It's not like a fashion show or nothing like that. It's just, like, getting people's awareness up about the jeans. And they will be there available."

While it may be surprising to some to find these organic hip-hoppers turning into full-fledged capitalists, Opio insists that his brethren are doing this to show that black artists can achieve entrepreneurial status on their own.

"I think it's just a good thing," he says. "I would love to see more of the entertainment business -- just in terms of black music in general, to just see people take more ownership of every aspect. Because I just feel like the power, the buying power, the kinda influence that hip-hop has, it just really -- you can see it translating through Escalades and Cristal and all these different, high-end products that are benefiting from it. I'd love to see the people that are creating it, own it, you know, rather than just having it used for another corporate entity."

But the 34-year-old Bay Area native isn't just going out on tour with his potnas to hype up jeans. The man is also hitting the streets to promote his newly released album, "Vulture's Wisdom: Volume One," the follow-up to his 2005 solo debut "Triangulation Station."

Much like when his fellow West Coast MCs like Murs or Aceyalone exclusively collaborated with one producer on their albums (Murs worked with Durham's own 9th Wonder on his last two efforts), Opio worked with only one producer for "Wisdom": Oakland-based beatsmith The Architect (Planet Asia, Encore). As recording-studio neighbors, Opio says, he and The Architect have been dying to work together for the longest.

"I always had a lot of respect for him as an artist, you know," he says. "What he was doing, his music, it was real sick, youknowhaimean. And he was real consistent with the beats. ... He got so much material that when I went over there and start listening to his beats, I was like, 'Hell, yeah, we gonna do this.'"

With Opio and Architect being the sole entities, "Wisdom" is an album that has one MC and one producer doing what the heck they supposed to do: making competent, effective hip-hop. No guest rappers. No stable of producers. No obligatory T-Pain cameo. Just two men doing it pure and unadulterated.

"It's kinda a departure from my first record, which was, I had a lot of guest appearances and whatnot. But I just felt like, on this record, it was strong how it was. It was a beauty in the fact that it was just us, youknowhaimean."

Opio believes what he's doing with "Wisdom," (which he says will be the first in a trilogy of albums he'll be doing with Architect) is giving off the authentic, old-school energy artists like Kanye West and Lupe Fiasco (whom he admires) are re-creating on their albums. With Opio coming from that same early-'90s era that gave us Nas, Wu-Tang Clan and The Fugees, he feels he can properly present what hip-hop has been missing these days.

"I don't really think that hip-hop has really went down," says Opio. "I just think, in terms of how it's viewed on television, it's just more about consumerism. Where before, hip-hop was like information, you know. N.W.A. was giving you information. Public Enemy was giving you information. KRS-One, youknowhaimean. Now, it's all about buying stuff, youknowhamsayin."

But, of course, if you're going to buy stuff from rappers, make sure it's stuff the rappers own.