[Editor's Note: Today we will be profiling each of the five contest finalists. The winner of the Eclipse® Sets the Stage™ competition will get $10,000 and play a CMJ Showcase October 18 at NYC's The Blender Theater at Gramercy, opening for Datarock. Make sure to vote for your favorite artist on their artist page, as you could win tickets to the show, and you can check the leader board to see where each artist stands. Voting ends tonight at 11:59 PM PST! ]

A Party Rocker & A Poet

They've certainly earned their name: Blue Scholars formed at the University of Washington in 2002, and five years later have created such intelligent and important music that a member of U-Oregon's International Studies program wrote a paper analyzing their songs as part of a "revolutionary critical pedagogy."

But while they're being fawned over in academia, Blue Scholars are almost too busy rocking crowds to notice. They've shared the stage with De La Soul, Mos Def, and Little Brother -- and last year opened for Kanye West. Attention from critical media like Vibe, Urb, and XLR8R have drawn the duo into the national eye, and they are currently performing everywhere from their hometown Seattle to DC and Atlanta.

Their latest album,

, opens with a soaring prayer of the Baha'i faith, immediately setting a thoughtful and meditative tone. DJ Sabzi's training as a jazz pianist and orchestrator lends texture and maturity to his beats, which pack enough punch to move a stadium full of people ( North By Northwest ) -- and the instrumental Xenophobia just begs a car stereo and a late-night drive with your P.Y.T.

Boldly chosen as lead single, Back Home is a call to the US government to return troops from overseas, a message to students hounded by army recruiters to choose another path, and a stunning example of political hip-hop expressing anger and discontent without the abrasiveness of Dead Prez or Rage Against the Machine. The track's video is simply heartbreaking. A former spoken-word poet, Geologic delivers his lines with clarity and force: "The fact is / Dr. Martin Luther King's legacy is looking like the street we named after him / Permanently under construction." It gives me chills every time.

To quote Amie Street's DWIZZLE: "What more can I say - you need to know about Blue Scholars."

So congrats to them for making the final 5 in our CMJ competition! Hopefully they only get bigger, and national music discussions will move away from album sales and jealous competition.