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It's Friday night at Dr. Unk's Oasis, a college bar in Greenville. Most of the locals who have taken up every table on the floor and every chair at the bar have never heard the Urban Sophisticates before, but they're about to.

Outlasting many of the original music acts that cut their teeth in Greensboro, the hip-hop act is still playing seven years after it started. After taking on the most challenging summer - and year - the band members have faced as a group, they've started to tour across the state and the country this month, winning new fans as they prep for the release of their upcoming album, "Classic Material," due Friday.

When the Urban Sophisticates roll in, it's quickly apparent how they live up to their name. By far, the seven members -- Benton James, Aaron James, Jeremy Denman, Sal Mascali, Ben Perkins, Ricky Nxumalo and Romondo Jessup -- are the sharpest-dressed people in the room. Wearing snazzy variations of button-down shirts, neckties, shiny black dress shoes, vests and slacks, they kick off the show with their song "Say Goodbye." There's an explosion of horns as Aaron James starts to croon, his laid-back demeanor in direct contrast to Benton James, who raps while bopping to the beat and wildly gesturing with his hands. No one in the crowd is dancing yet, but Aaron James believes that will change soon enough.

"I give them the benefit of the doubt," Aaron James says during intermission, "because when most crowds see us for the first time and there's a bar like this and they're sitting down, there's a minimum of drinks that they have to get in them before they start to dance."

Not everyone at Dr. Unk's is listening to the Urban Sophisticates for the first time. Sassha Rodriguez-Romero , a senior at East Carolina University, grew up listening to the group while she lived in Greensboro.

"When I listen to their music, it's like going to the beach in a long tide and sinking your toes beneath the sand and just that sensation that overwhelms you," Rodriguez-Romero says. "That's the feeling that their music gives me."

Sam Antonelli, 57, saw the Urban Sophisticates play Dr. Unk's last year. He says the group's eclectic, live hip-hop sound is a welcome break from the live acts he usually sees in Greenville.

"(They're) good because all you get in here is cover bands doing classic rock; how many times can you hear that stuff?" Antonelli says. "When you get to be my age, I don't want to hear that stuff any more. You might as well play the 'Star Spangled Banner.'"

Rodriguez-Romero and Antonelli's praise is music to the ears of group leader Benton James, Aaron's older brother. Goal one for the elder James is to become North Carolina's favorite group.

A year ago, the Urban Sophisticates had no idea what obstacles were in store for them. After all, the group had just won the southeastern finals at the 2007 Independent Music World Series in Atlanta, a national musical competition co-sponsored by Billboard Magazine.

"It was kind of surreal for us to have gone through with 40,000 other bands or something, and to be the last standing was a pretty crazy feeling," Benton James says.

The Urban Sophisticates won $5,000, musical and recording equipment and free CD duplication, courtesy of Disc Makers. They also attracted the attention of several recording labels, including Triad-based Right Hook Records, who signed a deal with the Urban Sophisticates, even though the upstart music company mainly represents rock acts such as Jonas Sees in Color and Medusa Stone. The wheel was turning as the group got to work on their first record that would not be self-released.

Then the wheel stopped.

"We had started talking to producers up north about producing tracks for us, and from what I understand they lost some of their funding," James says. "So, it was kind of like one of those things where we could stay on the label, but they really couldn't do anything for us.

Because Right Hook lacked the capital the Urban Sophisticates needed to hire the producers they had envisioned for their album, the group chose to split from the company.

"We feel blessed with the opportunity to be able to know them and to have worked with them," says Danny Fonorow, co-founder of Right Hook Records. "We hate that it didn't go farther, but we totally understand that they have their eyes set on a bigger prize, and it was one that financially, we couldn't keep up with."

So, without a label, the Urban Sophisticates had come full circle, working for themselves again. But that was nothing compared to the struggles they faced in June. Guitarist Ben Perkins' grandfather passed away, forcing the band to cancel shows; strained finances prevented them from getting paid for their music; and three cylinders blew out on their tour bus.

"That right there was almost 13 grand down the tube, so we took a major hit," Benton James says, "but I think the guys showed a lot of character. They beat a bunch of proverbial odds this summer, and a lot of them really hung, and that says a lot about who they are.

"It's not easy dealing with a group our size; there's always personality differences, there's always egos to deal with, and I'll be honest, most of me thinks it's the grace of God that we've been able to stay together as long as we have."

"Classic Material" is a collection of 13 songs the group has worked on over the past two years. Musically, the album is a solid progress report of where the Urban Sophisticates are today in terms of defining their identity, something James believes could distance fans of some of their previous recordings.

"I think this record could alienate a lot of fans who thought we were like a sort of rock, ska, jazz, funk thing," James says. "Really the goal of the band is to be a hip-hop band; we've just been learning how to do that."

The Urban Sophisticates unveiled their new direction with the online release of the single "First of the Drinks." Co-produced by group bassist Ricky Nxumalo, the song trades the group's live instrumentation for electronic beats as James raps, "Girl, you know the first of the drinks is on me, and after that the rest of the drinks we gonna see,/ You know the bottle of 'cab' is on me/ but you know the best things in life are all free."

"We tried to do a couple of songs that were accessible to the commercial side of things," James says. "The last record was kind of an indie, kind of a dark record, and with this record, we wanted to define the hip-hop side of what we do."

With the group together and performing like a well-organized unit, one question looms: Will James and his band mates soon be ready to take the next step and move to a larger city such as New York, Los Angeles or Nashville, Tenn., that can help gain them a national following? It's something James says he's considered before. However, he's been too busy lately working on "Classic Material" to really think about anything else.

"There's still a lot to establish with this town. What we want to do with this record is to literally just be the talk of the state, like, be the hottest band in the state," James says. "And I really think a lot of people are going to identify with this latest record, and it should do really, really well."

Joe Scott is a freelance contributor. Contact him at movieshowjoe@gmail.com.