My Gut Reaction: Mobb Deep - Survival of the Fittest EP (May 27, 2015)

This week I’m running a series of posts in honor of the late Albert Johnson, better known in the hip hop community as the rapper Prodigy. These reviews will close out both his and his group Mobb Deep’s respective catalogs, so as we’re close to the end of the week here, you’ve likely figured out what the final write-up will be for, and as it’s something you two have asked for many times over the past few years, hopefully you’ll come back for that one, too. Enjoy, leave your comments below, and we’ll see you tomorrow!

Survival of the Fittest is an EP release from Mobb Deep that I know almost nothing about. It dropped out of nowhere in 2015, the only fanfare leading up to it being a remix of a song from The Infamous (from which the EP gets its name) that seemed to have been recorded for dubious reasons, something I’ll touch on in a bit. It’s the second official EP release from the duo of Havoc and Prodigy, and unfortunately, it was also the final release from Mobb Deep before Prodigy’s passing, although both halves continued to release solo efforts in the two years that ensued.

My Gut Reaction: Mobb Deep - The Safe Is Cracked (April 7, 2009)

This week I’m running a series of posts in honor of the late Albert Johnson, better known in the hip hop community as the rapper Prodigy. These reviews will close out both his and his group Mobb Deep’s respective catalogs, so if you’ve been following this blog, you likely know what projects will be popping up this week. Enjoy, and leave your comments below!

In 2007, Prodigy began serving a three-and-a-half year prison sentence, which, as one can imagine, severely limited the man’s ability to keep his name active in hip hop circles. (He did manage to release a solo effort. H.N.I.C. Pt. 2, in 2008, but he had recorded that one in a rush knowing that he wouldn’t be around to promote it.) This turn of events was unacceptable to his rhyme partner Havoc, who mostly relied on Mobb Deep royalties in order to pursue his hobbies, so in order to maintain his status quo, he embarked on his own solo career, releasing The Kush in 2007 and Hidden Files in 2009, while continuing to sell his beats to artists outside of his circle such as Eminem and Method Man & Redman.

I’m sorry to report that none of this really explains why or even how The Safe Is Cracked dropped in 2009.

Soundtrack Soundcheck: Mobb Deep

This was not supposed to be an annual feature on the site, but I guess I did get kind of distracted with all of those other reviews this year. Ah well, anyway, today we’re going to talk about some songs Mobb Deep handed over to the soundtrack gods for financial gain.

Reader Review: Mobb Deep - Murda Muzik (Unreleased Version) (1999)

(So Taylor provided this Reader Review of the original version of Mobb Deep's Murda Muzik shortly after my Prodigy post, but I've been lazy about posting it. Which is still on brand for me, so huzzah! I'm consistent! Anyway, read on, and leave your thoughts for Taylor below. And as always, the italicized thoughts in parentheses are mine.)

For The Max-Approved Mixtape: Mobb Deep - "When U Hear The"

Artist: Mobb Deep

Title: "When U Hear The"

Producer: The Alchemist

Album: Amerikaz Nightmare (2004)

When Loud Records folded like a newspaper, it was the end of Mobb Deep's career as we all knew it.  Although their identity as dope rappers with a supportive label home that gave them full creative control was fully facilitated by Steve Rifkind, Prodigy and Havoc's downshifting into their current less-than-stellar rhyming personas was not directly tied in to their move over to Jive Records, home of Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake, and, at one point, Prodigy's sworn enemy Keith "Keith Murray" Murray.  However, both events coincided with one another fairly closely, so you're forgiven if you thought otherwise.

So, anyway, Mobb Deep sucks now.  Their music doesn't hit nearly as hard as it once did, which happens as rappers age, but it's especially disappointing when it comes to Hav and Cellblock P, since they have actual classic songs and albums under their collective belt.   Prodigy's rhyme skills have rightfully come under fire over the past decade, mostly for being terrible, but he's shown some sporadic signs of improvement with his past couple of projects, although the deep thinker we all loved back when The Infamous dropped is long gone.  Havoc, on the other hand, has actually improved his writing, but his beats have taken a turn for the worse.  You don't need me to tell you that, but I'm going to anyway.

The duo's sole album for Jive Records, Amerikaz Nightmare, is a nightmare of a rap album, with no real focus from the principal players, random guest spots handed out like candy (Jadakiss!  Littles!  Lil' Jon?), and hardly any entertainment value whatsoever.  There are two exceptions, both of which were produced by Mobb enthusiast The Alchemist: the first single "Got It Twisted", which manages to make Thomas Dolby's new wave leanings on "She Blinded Me With Science" sound sinister as shit, and the subject of today's post, "When U Hear The", whose inclusion on this playlist thing should come as no surprise to anyone that has read this blog with any regularity.

The instrumental for "When U Hear The", yet another claim of assumed victory by Hav and P, is a striking, desolate, and disturbing death march.  For me, it ranks in Alan's top five: it grabs you immediately and forces you to pay attention, no matter how much you don't care for what you're about to see.  As most rap songs tend to do, it runs as a continuous loop, taking breaks only where predetermined hooks are to be laid down, but in its bleakness lies an energy that our hosts tap into for their respective verses.

Prodigy, naturally, takes to the microphone first, shouting out Alan and delivering both the first verse and the chorus, which ends up being an excuse to keep saying the incomplete thought "when you hear the" over and over again (although the Mobb slips and also throws in a couple of "when you hear that"'s, which is less obtuse to me).  His verse is, at times, hilariously awful: he gets saved by the instrumental more than a little bit.  For reasons unknown to me, Cellblock P decides to inform listeners that he "need[s] a woman like Christina Aguilery (sic) for a broad" without ever providing any thoughts as to why Aguilera would be the perfect match for someone who lives "the infamous life".  Thankfully, he gets all of that bullshit out of the way fairly quickly, switching to boasts about his back catalog that are well-founded, along with threats that are less so, but still, par for the course.  Alan even tosses in a perfect callback to The Infamous' "Survival Of The Fittest", although it will most likely cause you two to stop listening to "When You Hear The" and put on that album instead.  I implore you, at least finish this article first.

Havoc comes in second, as he has done almost all his life, with the better verse, although, funnily enough, he also brags about Mobb Deep's back catalog, almost as though the two men consulted each other during the writing process.  Hav has always needed to try harder to be noticed (which is strange, since he's the one with the more varied guest spots outside of the camp), but it shows in his performance, which is cocky and entertaining.  "When U Hear The" is one of the few times that Prodigy was outshined by Havoc on a track, which had to have contributed somewhat to Hav's decision to record and release a number of solo albums: a rapper's confidence level can be a powerful thing.  It should be harnessed and used to provide energy in a third world country.

Still, what makes this track for me is the instrumental, which makes it a fine mixtape entry.  Not only is it dope, it's also very intuitive, as though it somehow knew that anyone listening to Amerikaz Nightmare up to that point would need to hear something, anything that could potentially remind them of prime Mobb Deep.  Sadly, this is one of only a handful of songs from 2004 on that could definitively hold a spot on a Mobb Deep playlist: their material has really spiraled downward since then.  But you can still listen to "When U Hear The", so enjoy.

Do you agree or disagree with this selection?  Discuss below.

-Max

RELATED POST:

Mobb Deep - Amerikaz Nightmare (review)

For The Max-Approved Mixtape: Mobb Deep - "Eye For An Eye (Your Beef Is Mines)"

Artist: Mobb Deep featuring Nas and Raekwon

Title: "Eye For An Eye (Your Beef Is Mines)"

Producer: Mobb Deep (as credited in liner notes; most likely Havoc, with an uncredited assist, most likely from A Tribe Called Quest's Q-Tip, but I'm just speculating here)

Album: The Infamous (1995)

One bizarre night, I found myself driving a friend of mine to retrieve his car from his house.  If I'm remembering correctly, it was because his father "stole" it from him while it was parked at his workplace.  The word "stole" is in quotation marks solely because what his dad did to him certainly wasn't illegal (he shared ownership of the vehicle with my friend), but it was a massive dick move, since he didn't even bother to tell his son that he was taking the car, leaving my friend panicked throughout the day as he wasted time calling the cops.  This isn't even the weirdest thing that happened that night, but ultimately, the story isn't about that: it's about the ride back to his house.

My car was equipped with just a cassette player, but all I bought at the time were CDs, which means I spent an inordinate amount of time recording mix tapes just so I could listen to something other than the goddamn radio, which, by the way, sucked back then, too.  Like most music nerds, I felt what I was listening to was just as important as when I was listening to it; some songs were tailor-made for driving around aimlessly.  This particular night, I was listening to my Wu-Tang Clan tape, because of course I would have a tape devoted solely to the Wu.  My friend occupied the passenger seat, while another dude took up the back.  That guy was more of a hard rock fan, so he, as usual, tuned out whatever was playing on my speakers, but that didn't matter to me, as it was my fucking car.

As a technicality, I included Mobb Deep's "Eye For An Eye (Your Beef Is Mines)" on the mix, simply because Raekwon was a featured guest, and last time I checked, he was still a member of the Wu.  It's a flimsy excuse, and these days Mobb Deep's catalog has grown to such a degree that there's no need for such technicalities on my iTunes playlists now, but they only had two albums out at the time, only one of which was really worth a shit, so play along with me for a bit.  Once the dusty and monotonous, yet hypnotic, melody kicked in, with the cold drums to match, I noticed him trying to pay closer attention, which had to have been difficult, because you don't sit in a car with your boys silently unless you're either pissed off at each other or you're in the midst of a soul-searching road trip in your art-house movie. 

"Who is this?", he asked.  I told him Mobb Deep, but he was specifically asking about who was actually rapping at the time.  It was Havoc and Prodigy's QB brethren Nas, dropping his classic verse (with one of the first, if not the first, references to his 'Nas Escobar' persona) with blunt rhymes written from the mindset of a jaded mafioso, which makes no goddamn sense considering how young the guy still was at the time.  This one song enticed the dude so much that he made me stop at a Blockbuster Music (kids, that is a store that used to exist that sold music, and yes, it was owned by Blockbuster Video, which also is a store that used to exist) just so he could buy it.  They had one copy of The Infamous sitting in their racks, and given that this wasn't a discount seller like Best Buy, my friend ended up paying $18.99 plus tax for the classic album.  So Hav and P, I'm solely responsible for at least two units sold of The Infamous, let alone any that happened to be purchased after I started this blog.  You can send my gift basket through UPS.

I've written before that "Eye For An Eye (Your Beef Is Mines)" is my favorite Mobb Deep song, and that fact hasn't changed.  Whenever I think of the on-again, off-again duo, this stark beat (with its sample of Al Green's "I Wish You Were Here" buried within) plays in my head, and it's a bitch to get it to stop.  The Infamous is well-known for containing classic composition after classic composition (like the unmatched "Shook Ones Pt. II" or the follow-up, "Survival Of The Fittest", which the duo recently re-recorded for ESPN for play during the NBA Finals, but to diminishing returns, as it sounds awful, folks); shit, every other song is a fucking contender for this playlist, and the ones I'm leaving off are still better than most "music" released today.  (The word "music" is in quotation marks solely because I'm an asshole.)

But I always go back to "Eye For An Eye (Your Beef Is Mines)", four verses of matter-of-fact intimidation and proclamations of dominance: Raekwon closes out the track with the weakest contribution and it's still hot.  (What makes this song even more special is that it isn't even the first take on the concept: the original version, included on the bonus disc for the duo's last album, The Infamous Mobb Deep, contains different verses (except from Nas) and an extra cameo from Rae's partner-in-rhyme Ghostface Killah.  Which would make you think that I would be predisposed to liking that version better, what with it having two Wu-Tang members on it and all, but you'd be wrong.)  The hook is simplistic, but it gets the point across: if we happen to be friends, your problems become my problems.  It's a song about loyalty, as each artist raps about their day-to-day, which includes what amounts to out-and-out warfare each and every goddamn day because 1990s hip hop.  With that, Cellblock P kicks things off with a lengthy diatribe, dropping threats like coins into a fountain with the apathy of a Republican for a poor minority.  Havoc bats second, and while he wasn't as good with the pen as he is now, he still makes an indelible mark, while Raekwon the Chef takes an early opportunity to expand his delegation outside of Staten Island.

Nas Escobar is the real winner, though.  His short verse slaughters all comers as he speaks in clipped descriptions ("Tailor made ostrich, Chanel for my women friend", "Mad man, my sanity is going like an hourglass") that tell you everything you need to know about his lifestyle (on wax, granted, but still).  I know I'm not the biggest Nas fan: he does take this rap shit far too seriously (a fact not dispelled on his actually-pretty-good documentary Nas: Time Is Illmatic, although he at least explained why he was so fucking single-minded while he was recording Illmatic).  Hell, the name of this very blog is an indirect swipe at the guy.  But when he connects, he's on, and I'm not afraid to say that, even with my misgivings, he's still one of the best rappers working today.  He just needs better production and the ability to stick to a given concept, two ingredients he receives on this banger.

Do you agree or disagree with this selection?  Discuss below.

-Max

RELATED POST:

Mobb Deep - The Infamous (review)

My Gut Reaction: Mobb Deep - The Infamous Mobb Deep (April 1, 2014)

2014 wasn't the greatest year for hip hop in general: aside from the fact that I tend to write about older albums on this blog on purpose, there's a valid reason why I chose to mostly ignore this year's output within our chosen genre.  But that's not to say that 2014 was without hubris, the currency by which modern-day rappers thrive.  Case in point: Queensbridge-based rap duo Mobb Deep reunited to celebrate the twenty-year anniversary of their breakthrough project, their sophomore album The Infamous, one year early, and decided that what the remaining fans they had left really wanted to hear was a new album that listeners would inevitably be forced to draw comparisons from, especially when they chose to pair said new album with a disc filled with rarities and unreleased tracks from The Infamous's studio sessions.

Yeah, that doesn't seem like such a good idea today, huh, guys?

My Gut Reaction: Mobb Deep - Black Cocaine (November 21, 2011)

A quick reminder for the two readers out there: I do not compare an artist's album with one from another artist.  That would be completely unfair.  (I imagine that the folks who contribute Reader Reviews do the same, but I can't speak for them.)  It doesn't make sense to compare Liquid Swords to, say, Take Care.  (No, that's a terrible example, because it somehow draws the conclusion that I think Drake's Take Care is a fantastic album, when the reality is that I haven't even listened to it yet.  I may as well be comparing Liquid Swords to YooHoo chocolate drink.)  The only comparison that I can make is with the other projects in an artist's catalog: this means that the only act I can compare the fallen rap duo Mobb Deep with is the Mobb Deep of the past.  

Which is also an entirely unfair judgment.

Havoc and Prodigy have the misfortune of having recorded two of the finest examples of our chosen genre's brilliance, The Infamous and Hell On Earth.  This is considered a negative instead of a positive because all of the rest of their work, from Murda Muzik to their shitty G-Unit-tainted effort Blood Money to their newest EP Black Cocaine, is held up to that gold standard, when there is no way that these two will ever clear that hurdle.  In terms of rappers from the mid-1990s era who still work today, I'll go on record as saying that there hasn't been quite a fall from lyrical grace as painful to watch as there has been for Prodigy, whose microphone skills have deteriorated in such a rapid fashion that I'm surprised nobody has questioned whether or not he ever wrote his own lyrics before.

Black Cocaine is the first Mobb Deep effort recorded and released after Prodigy returned home from a stint in prison.  It's an EP because the Mobb didn't want to wait to get new product out on the streets: they were looking for instant gratification.  In reality, the remaining fans in Mobb Deep's world are thrilled that they severed ties with Curtis Jackson's G-Unit Records, and are confused that they would release an EP that consists of only five tracks when you know they have a shit-ton of songs in the vault.  Maybe Havoc and Prodigy are saving their best stuff for their next full-length project; maybe they don't like the majority of what they've already recorded and are actually exercising some quality control.

Nah.

1.  DEAD MAN'S SHOES

The first two phrases heard during Prodigy's horrendous chorus are "Eat food!" and "I'm full!": hardly what you would expect from the guy who wrote...well, any fucking song on Hell On Earth or The Infamous.  I mean, seriously, what the fuck, man?  Cellblock P's verse is also pretty awful, immediately destroying any potential goodwill that he may have earned from his The Ellsworth Bumpy Johnson EP earlier this year.  He isn't alone in shouldering the blame for the rap abortion known as "Dead Man's Shoes", though: Havoc sounds lazy as shit, with his unnecessary taunts that hold no real threat behind them.  With just this one song, Mobb Depp have proven that some rap artists really need to retire and move the fuck on, which is a terrible position for my write-up to be in right now, since it's only the first goddamn song on Black Cocaine.  The Bounty Killer vocal sample during the hook was an interesting choice for producer Beat Butcha to work into the instrumental (which wasn't entirely terrible), and have you seen the no-budget video Hav and P shot for this shit?  It aims for bleak and gory but ends up nailing artless and hilariously awful, especially with the "graphic violence" that's so fake that they may as well have poured the fake blood directly onto your head.  Wow, this was a long paragraph.

2.  BLACK COCAINE

Methinks Havoc was so thrilled about his partner-in-rhyme being home that he let him record whatever bullshit he wanted for the chorus to both "Dead Man's Shoes" and this title track, and believe me when I say that the hook on here is somehow even worse than on the previous song.  However, Cellblock P actually sounds okay during his verse, which was unexpected.  Havoc's contribution over The Alchemist's instrumental was pretty inconsequential (hell, the beat annoyed the shit out of me too, as it sounds like Al cribbed the idea from the theme music to The Young & The Restless), but Prodigy actually sounded like a version of his old self on here.  Yeah, I said it.  A terrible song, but a decent verse, nonetheless.

3.  CONQUER

Havoc's lone production credit on Black Cocaine uses a sample I last heard on LL Cool J's "The Ripper Strikes Back", and pairs it with an equally epic song title, "Conquer".  Cellblock P once again nearly loses the entire audience with a lame-ass hook, but he salvages everything in the end with another alright performance.  I realize that Mobb Deep will absolutely motherfucking never reach the heights that The Infamous and Hell On Earth (and, to a lesser extent, Murda Muzik) achieved, both musically and lyrically, but all I ask is for an entertaining diversion that doesn't entirely suck.  This might be that diversion for you.  It is for me, anyway.  And yes, my standards have dropped pretty low whenever Havoc and Prodigy are concerned.  But I still liked this track okay.

4.  GET IT FOREVER (FEAT. NAS)

This was surprisingly good, and I say "surprisingly" because producer The Alchemist throws the beat at the audience unexpectedly amid a dialogue sample, not unlike how Prodigy would threaten to throw a television set at you back in the day.  As with Infamy's "The Learning (Burn)", Prodigy comes thisclose to fucking everything up by contributing a piss-poor verse to an otherwise decent (by 2011 standards) Mobb Deep song (although none of his bars are as shitty as "You'se a bitch-ass n---a, I should have you killed", from the aforementioned "The Learning (Burn)").  His chorus sucks, though.  It's really really bad.  Luckily, Havoc and a wholly-unconnected Nas, who seems to have recorded his verse in a different timeline, brings "Get It Forever" back into the fold.  I have a feeling that I enjoyed Nasir's rudimentary verse a lot more than you two did, but oh well.

5.  LAST DAYS

Black Cocaine ends just as it began, with a crappy song that may as well have been recorded by entirely different duo.  Havoc has never sounded more like Pusha T in his life, and that is a bad thing, kids: the man has been around since the early 1990s and really should have found his own voice by now.  Cellblock P's verse begins promisingly, but then dives into his "millionaire problems" that not only isolates him from his few remaining fans, but also shows that he hasn't changed a bit since prison: since the world itself has since changed, Produgy proves that he is incapable of adaptation, which is a huge fucking problem.  Young Free's beat is faux-dramatic and not entirely shitty, but isn't good enough to save the song.  Or the EP.

The following two bonus tracks are only available on the limited edition version of Black Cocaine that was found exclusively at independent record stores, although they were released as freebies to hip hop blogs long ago, so they're not especially difficult to find.

6.  WATERBOARDING

Well, this was unexpected: Mobb Deep use The Alchemist's uncharacteristically moving instrumental to pay homage to Handsome Boy Modeling School's "Waterworld".  I'm only half kidding: Al's beat uses the same Marc Moulin "Tohubohu Part I" sample as what the Automator and Prince Paul gave Encore (to his credit, though, he does use a bit more of the original source material, but the end result is still obsessed with water).  Hav and P don't sound bad: this slower, slightly menacing musical backing is their friend.  Cellblock P's hook is predictably garbage, but I'm tired of telling you two that: just assume from this point forward that all of Prodigy's hooks are ass.  The song itself was alright.

7.  STREET LIGHTS (FEAT. DION PRIMO)

Finally, a track that doesn't feature Prodigy on the chorus!  It's just too bad that this rare sighting takes place on a song that most of you two won't actually have on your copy of Black Cocaine, as the site you downloaded it illegally from store you bought it from probably only had the five-track EP.  The J.U.S.T.I.C.E. League lends the Mobb a beat that fits them like a pair of jeans that are seventeen sizes too small: "Street Lights" sounds like one of the shittier outtakes from Infamy.  Dion Primo's hook could have been assigned to anybody: he sounds okay, but there's no way his chorus was written with Mobb Deep in mind.  Hav and P are running out of chances to impress me before I seriously consider ignoring the fuck out of them outright.  Besides, it's not like they're bringing anything new to the culture anymore.  Come on, fuckers, prove me wrong.

THE LAST WORD:  Sporadic sparks of decency over the course of a five- (or seven-) track EP are not enough to justify a continued career in hip hop, but with Black Cocaine, Mobb Deep seem to be hoping that you won't notice how lazy this shit sounds, but instead will simply get excited over the fact that Mobb Deep released some new music.  There isn't anything on here that could even be mistaken as crucial: although I liked a couple of the tracks, absolutely none of this shit reaches even the stunningly low bar that I had for the duo after the excruciatingly awful Blood Money.  Havoc must have eaten food and gotten full, because he doesn't have that hunger in his voice that helped the last few Mobb Deep efforts at least not completely suck, and his need to have Prodigy perform every single goddamn horrible chorus is questionable enough to have his publishing revoked.  Speaking of Cellblock P, he vacillates between terrible rhymes written by a third grader and what amounts to Xeroxes of what he has done on better songs in the past (think "Quiet Storm" forward).  Black Cocaine took a while to find a release date after Prodigy left prison, but the fucking thing still sounds like a quick cash-in.  How is that even possible?  Readers are strongly urged to pretend that Black Cocaine doesn't even exist, it's that useless as a tool for entertainment.

-Max

RELATED POSTS:

Track the downfall of Mobb Deep by clicking here.

Mobb Deep - Blood Money (May 2, 2006)

Once upon a time, there was a man named Curtis Jackson. He believed himself to be the newly-crowned prince of hip hop, and thanks to his consistent record sales (as much as Max hates to draw attention to the fact, both Get Rick or Die Tryin' and The Massacre were massive global blockbusters), all of the most powerful men in all of the music industry helped to solidify his perception.

Curtis had already brought all of his friends into the industry, in the form of his crew G-Unit, and they, too, found success (well, to a point: did anybody actually purchase Tony Yayo's solo album?). One of the members of his camp turned traitor and defected, opting instead to friend his leader's enemies on Facebook, but Curtis remained determined to take over hip hop completely. He decided that one way to reach his goal was to sign as many artists as he possibly could to his vanity label, G-Unit Records, with the help of his bottomless checking account, funded by Interscope.

While he also went the traditional route of signing unknowns to become part of his army (none of whom have seen an album release date as of this writing), Curtis also elected to track down two already-established rap duos, hoping that his newfound clout would translate into both street credibility and mainstream success for the acts involved. The first duo was M.O.P., who graciously accepted the money but ultimately recorded nothing (save for a handful of singles) for the G-Unit, opting instead to go the independent path (although they're still technically signed to the label). The other duo was Mobb Deep. Curtis was from the same neck of the woods as Havoc and Prodigy, and had even worked with them in the past (on the track "Bump That", recorded during the days of the Curtis Jackson mixtape onslaught, post-nine-shots but pre-Get Rick or Die Tryin'). He felt that hearing Mobb Deep get their music played on the radio was a brilliant idea (because, honestly, who hasn't thought about using songs such as "Shook Ones Part II" and "Quiet Storm" to advertise cars, jewelry, and vacuum cleaners...oh, wait, I just saw a Puff Daddy commercial for his cologne that actually features "Quiet Storm", so scratch that last comment), and signed the duo as soon as they could get out of their Jive Records contract, a less-than-fruitful agreement that only produced one album, the ill-received Amerikaz Nightmare.

Curtis tested the waters by having Mobb Deep appear on a remix to his "Outta Control", and once that became a moderate hit, signed off on the budget for Havoc and Prodigy's Blood Money, their G-Unit debut and seventh album overall. Both men also received brand new cars, in lieu of royalty points or anything that could actually be useful for the future of their children. In return, Mobb Deep proved their loyalty for their new family by enveloping themselves completely, and Prodigy even got a G-Unit tattoo somewhere on one of his hands, which is utterly ridiculous, but whatever.
Half of Blood Money's production comes from the usual suspects for a Mobb Deep album, Havoc himself and The Alchemist (who handles only one song), but the other half are all from outsiders. (One of those outsiders, Dr. Dre, was supposed to contribute "Nightmares", an track that was promoted heavily in pre-release interviews but was ultimately deleted when Dre himself wasn't happy with the final product.) The disc was met with almost universal derision by critics, bloggers, and fans alike. It appears that the last thing that anybody wanted to hear was Havoc and Prodigy sacrificing their well-established identities in order to fit into the generic cookie-cutter piffle Curtis Jackson's G-Unit was synonymous with. Sales were dismal, and Curtis withdrew all support for his new signees. Although, as a duo, they're also still signed to G-Unit, the Mobb have elected to part ways temporarily, recording solo albums under different labels, although they haven't yet broken up as a group. Prodigy's current jail sentence doesn't seem to have limited his output any, though: the man released at least two solo albums in 2008 alone.

Here's Blood Money, in all of its glory.

1. SMOKE IT
Well, there's no rap album intro, so that's nice. This beat is really fucking weak, but at least Havoc sounds like he wants to be seen as a rapper. Prodigy's rhymes are so juvenile and ridiculous that you may be tempted to skip to the nest song right when he starts his verse. Your instincts would be dead on.

2. PUT 'EM IN THEIR PLACE
"Hollywood" Havoc and "V.I." P opt to completely erase any fond memories you may have had regarding The Infamous, Hell On Earth, or even possibly Murda Muzik by providing us a song that would have been beneath them fourteen years prior, but today, fits them like a glove, since they both sound like they would rather roll around in Curtis Jackson's money than rap.

3. STOLE SOMETHING (FEAT LLOYD BANKS)
I'm capable of ignoring the fact that Lloyd Banks is on the song and not, say, Rapper Noyd, or anyone else in the Mobb Deep camp, but the ill-conceived hook takes me out of the movie completely. And, side note for Prodigy: nobody is buying your Hollywood persona, but that might be a good thing where your career is concerned, since your street cred would be below zero instead of simply hovering at the bottom.

4. CREEP (FEAT 50 CENT)
The beat sounds clever for exactly four seconds, but then you realize that the entire song sounds like that, with no real variation to speak of. Hearing Curtis rhyme made me remember several interviews regarding his signing of Mobb Deep, beaming proudly as if he was doing them a favor. Hey, Curtis, shouldn't you be checking up on the status of the Mash Out Posse?

5. SPEAKING SO FREELY
I can't imagine that Hav and P could ever listen to Blood Money and truly believe their music would appeal to any audience at this point. Maybe older white guys who are trying to look cool and hip to their sixteen-year-old hottie babysitters, but even they would have better taste than this.

6. BACKSTAGE PASS (FEAT 50 CENT)
The K-Lassik Beats instrumental (goofy name, by the way) is a decent impersonation of early Timbaland. And while neither Havoc nor Prodigy would ever truly sound comfortable over a Timbo beat (although they have been on at least one, a remix to some Lil' Kim song that I can't remember the title to at the moment), it's still very aggravating that they elect to waste the beat on some random fuckery (literally, as they're talking about groupies). Prodigy also needs to get off of his knees and stop sucking the G-Unit cock. You'll understand what I'm talking about when you hear this garbage. Or, better yet, don't.

7. GIVE IT TO ME (FEAT YOUNG BUCK)
A lot of folks believe Young Buck to be the best artist out of the G-Unit camp (at least, before he was kicked out in 2008). You couldn't figure out why after listening to his bullshit verse on here. Did you realize that both The Infamous and Hell On Earth are considered to be classic rap albums (and not just by Max)? One consistent trait that I found on both albums was that there were no songs for the ladies. Coincidence? Profile's beat isn't without merit, but seriously, guys, what the hell?

8. CLICK CLICK (FEAT TONY YAYO)
Having the fifty-seven year old Tony Yayo on your song is usually never a good (or even reasonable) selling point, so I'm convinced that this track was a contractual obligation (Curtis wanted to go to the gym and didn't want Yayo following him around with his yapping, like the big dog and the little dog from those early Warner Bros. cartoons).

9. PEARLY GATES (FEAT 50 CENT)
One thing I hate (only one thing?) is when a song is centered around a certain theme, and one rapper decides to spit random stupid shit instead of following the topic. As this song is about Havoc and Prodigy's concerns regarding religion and the concept of heaven (awfully deep for late-career Mobb Deep, in my opinion), Curtis unsurprisingly rhymes about his guns and his bullets. For only the millionth time, Curtis ruins the song, which fucking sucks, because both Hav and P sound great, even with all of Prodigy's blasphemous lines censored out by the label. (You may be better off tracking down the uncensored version on the Interweb, but Curtis is still on the song, so it's your funeral.)

10. CAPITAL P, CAPITAL H (FEAT NYCE)
Yayo referred to Prodigy as "Las Vegas P" earlier, and that name pops up again here, but I'm blissfully unaware of anything that Prodigy has done to warrant such a lame-ass moniker.

11. DAYDREAMIN'
The Chad Beatz instrumental and the rhymes which accompany it make this track not a bad one at all, but you shouldn't have to listen to ten fucking songs before you get to one that's halfway decent.

12. THE INFAMOUS (FEAT 50 CENT)
Not unlike how he did on Amerikaz Nightmare, producer The Alchemist provides the best track on Blood Money with "The Infamous". While it sounds a bit uncharacteristic of Al, the track still sounds pretty good, as long as you can look past the asinine hook by Curtis, who can't resist name-dropping his own fucking crew when he's supposed to be giving Mobb Deep their props. Kudos to Prodigy for addressing his family's dance school, albeit in an incredibly sexist way.

13. IN LOVE WITHJ THE MOULA
Thanks to the title, the metaphor this song is going for beats you in the fucking face with the sledgehammer of subtlety. I'm actually more upset with the spelling of "moula" in the title, since it looks awkward, and doesn't everyone spell it "moolah"? Even for rappers, that spelling looks strange.

14. IT'S ALRIGHT (FEAT 50 CENT & MARY J. BLIGE)
Wow, this was unnecessary. However, Curtis hardly does anything on here, so it's not the worst Mobb Deep song ever or anything, and having Mary sing her own verse was a nice touch. But I'll be damned if I can remember anything about this track five minutes from now.

The final two songs are supposed to be bonus tracks.

15. HAVE A PARTY (FEAT 50 CENT & NATE DOGG)
Nate Dogg appearing on a Mobb Deep album isn't a new idea, but you get the feeling that this was originally supposed to be Curtis featuring Mobb Deep, and not the other way around, especially since Curtis handles the first verse. (However, he also handled the first verse on "Bump That", if that's any consolation.) All of the lyrics are painful as fuck to listen to, so even though Fredwreck's beat isn't bad, this song should have remained on the Get Rick or Die Tryin' soundtrack from whence it came.

16. OUTTA CONTROL (REMIX) (50 CENT FEAT MOBB DEEP)
The fact that Dr. Dre produced this remix surprises me to no end. (He also produced the original, which was one of the better-sounding songs on The Massacre.) However, considering the fact that this radio-friendly garbage sounds like, well, garbage, I'm actually offended that the label was able to promote Blood Money with having production from Dr. Dre based on a technicality. I don't need to hear Havoc and Prodigy rhyme as if the mainstream is ever going to give a rat's ass about either of them. Guys, your time is up.
FINAL THOUGHTS: For a crew whose career should have ended four albums ago, Mobb Deep prove once again that their time has been past. Blood Money, a G-Unit disc masquerading as a Mobb Deep album, suffers from a lack of cohesion, a reliance on some horribly miscast guest spots, a general confusion of sorts regarding the status of everyone else in Mobb Deep's camp (were Big Noyd and Twin Gambino given the wrong address to appear at during the recording sessions?), terrible beats (save for a few), and, the worst offense of all, coasting, which Havoc and Prodigy elect to do instead of trying to win new fans while appeasing the diehards that are mysteriously still around even after all of these years. Hollywood Hav and Las Vegas P spend too much of their time in awe of the fact that rap's most profitable star (at the time) heard The Infamous maybe once and (incorrectly) assumed he could turn these jackasses into mainstream stars, and that lack of effort on their part shines through like a diamond-encrusted gawdy-as-hell G-Unit spinner.

BUY OR BURN? The fuck do you think? If you already own this album, I highly suggest that you drive up to Havoc's house and demand your fifteen bucks back. And while you're there, you should explain to him that selling out to G-Unit did them no favors. Fuck this album.

BEST TRACKS: "The Infamous"; most of "Pearly Gates"

-Max

RELATED POSTS:
Watch Mobb Deep's career rise and fall by clicking here.

Mobb Deep - Amerikaz Nightmare (August 10, 2004)

As I mentioned in my last Mobb Deep post, the resume that they sent around the industry, which was in the form of the Free Agents: The Murda Mixtape "album", secured Havoc and Prodigy a deal with Jive Records, a label that is much more known for cultivating pop stars that they are for their "urban" division: at one point they did hold the careers for the Clipse and A Tribe Called Quest in their hands (actually, I think Tribe still owes Jive Records one last album), but they have proven over and over again that hip hop has no place within the walls of Jive, unless your name is Justin Timberlake and you hold the world of popular music in the palm of your sweaty and filthy-rich hand.

Havoc and Prodigy gathered the troops and crafted Amerikaz Nightmare in a hurry, since they needed to make sure their name remained potent in the streets. They combined newly recorded, label-sanctioned tracks with older songs that they kept in their vault that were too "good" (you'll notice later that the quotes were placed there for a reason) to simply be leaked onto a mixtape. Production was handled by Havoc himself, as per usual, with their crony the Alchemist not far behind, but the Mobb also decided to branch out for a new sound, in an effort to prove to their new employers that, yes, they could sell records to the audience of the day, one that was fickle and was turning their collective head toward the Southern part of the United States map.

Ultimately, the experiment failed, and despite getting some decent press for the first single, "Got It Twisted", with its highly unorthodox Thomas Dolby sampling, Amerikaz Nightmare failed to perform to expectations, and the head of Jive ultimately decided that, perhaps, rhyming wasn't the strong suit of Havoc and Prodigy, and secured the duo jobs in the company store.

Was the general public wrong in its assumption that Mobb Deep's heyday had passed? Is Amerikaz Nightmare an unheralded classic that deserves your attention and, more importantly, your cold hard cash? Are Havoc and Prodigy so untouchable in the genre, thanks to their earlier efforts, that they're guaranteed a spot in the hip hop hall of fame, regardless of the questionable quality of their later output?

(SPOILER ALERT: No.)

1. AMERIKAZ NIGHTMARE
As if the Mobb were aware that third chances were rare in our chosen genre, they decide to skip the 'rap album intro' bullshit and jump right into the title track. Prodigy's verse is annoying and gimmicky, but not completely useless. Havoc's reference to having weapons in bulk as if they bought them at Costco is pretty funny, though.

2. WIN OR LOSE
The trend of enveloping an R&B/soul vocal sample within the instrumental itself has long since been out of fashion, and yet producers still insist on doing just that to this day. Even though the Alchemist, who produces this track, was one of the founding fathers when it came to that style of beatmaking, that doesn't make this song any less fucking terrible. It's such a waste of some halfway decent lines by Hav and P.

3. FLOOD THE BLOCK
Not that great, but it's really short (less than three minutes long), so it serves its purpose.

4. DUMP (FEAT NATE DOGG)
Prodigy addresses the fans directly, advising them to not confuse this album with "that mixtape shit" (he's probably referring to Free Agents: The Murda Mixtape, but the Mobb have so many mixtapes floating around with unreleased material that it's hard to tell), since "those were just scraps". I will acknowledge that all of these songs so far are much more polished than those "scraps", but none of them are on the level of their classic material, this track included. And who actually believed that having Nate Dogg do the hook for a Mobb Deep song was a good idea?

5. GOT IT TWISTED
The song itself is only okay, but the brilliant use of "She Blinded Me With Science" is the focal point anyway, as the New Wave hit is mutated into an ominous lurking beast. It's even more hilarious that Thomas Dolby himself called out Kevin Federline for unauthorized sampling, but praised Havoc and Prodigy (and the Alchemist) for their creativity, and also for actually paying to sample the goddamn song. Prodigy's complete dismissal of his enemy, bragging about how he would even kill them in front of his daughter, is completely insane: he states coldheartedly that, should blood spill onto her, "it's okay, she'll live". That's cold, dunn, but it's also the only proof so far that the Prodigy of Amerikaz Nightmare is the same guy that penned such winning prose for The Infamous and Hell On Earth.

6. WHEN U HEAR THE
Easily the best song on the album, and the only song on here that rightfully deserves its place in the Mobb Deep canon, regardless of Prodigy's ridiculous reference to new labelmate Christina Aguilera. Alchemist's Bataan death march of an instrumental will encode itself into your DNA, it's that catchy (and haunting as hell).

7. REAL N----Z
From the Nicholas Cage film of the same name.

8. SHORTY WOP
Bad enough to make you forget that these are the same guys that once brought us "shook Ones Pt. II" and "G.O.D. Part III", two songs that are completely unrelated to each other, by the way.

9. REAL GANGSTAZ (FEAT LIL JON)
Not even scribbled in crayon on the back of a kindergartner's construction paper project did a collaboration between Mobb Deep and Lil Jon sound like a good idea, but they went and did it anyway, since Smaller Jonathan was the flavor of the minute. I can't even picture this bullshit getting any burn at the clubs, unless we're talking about the deejay releasing deadly toxins into the atmosphere by literally setting fire to the 12-inch single. My God, this is bad. I can't even picture Hav and P keeping a straight face when they played the final product for their own label.

10. ONE OF OURS PART II (FEAT JADAKISS)
I believe the original song was a Jadakiss solo album cut. Sadly, Kiss fails to outshine his hosts on this track, which I would say is a waste of space, but it's not like the Mobb had anything better to fill the album gaps in with.

11. ON THE RUN
So you truly believe that nobody "could fuck with [your] rhyming", huh, P? Maybe ten years ago, you would have been right, but today (and in 2004), pretty much everybody can fuck with your rhyming, except maybe those kids that keep populating your favorite hip hop station's playlist. Maybe you should deflate that ego of yours a bit, dunn: it's hard to see the screen.

12. THROW YOUR HANDS (IN THE AIR)
Not even scribbled in crayon on the back of a kindergartner's construction paper project did a collaboration between Mobb Deep and Kanye West sound like a good idea, but they went and did it anyway. Although it is admirable that the Mobb even thought to include Kanye on their album after the lyrical thrashing 'Ye's boss Shawn Carter gave to Prodigy on "The Takeover", the beat sounds like something he dusted off after tripping over it on his cutting room floor: it even includes the same vocal sample commanding listeners to "throw your hands in the air" that he used for John Legend's "Used To Love U". The Mobb aren't the best type of rappers for this beat, and it becomes blatantly obvious once Havoc starts to rhyme.

13. GET ME (FEAT BIG NOYD & LITTLES)
Okay, this song is terrible, but I'm not totally convinced that its failure is due to Mobb Deep's influence. Amerikaz Nightmare places an emphasis on faster-paced instrumentals, probably because the South was starting to come up at the same time (which is why Lil Jon is on the damn album to begin with): this is mostly Jive's fault for forcing the Mobb to conform to the hip hop "norm" instead of letting them work. However, the Mobb don't get to escape unscathed: their rhymes still mostly suck.

14. WE UP
I actually liked this song, but the hook is pretty fucking awful. Still, I'll take what I can get at this point in the Mobb timeline.

15. NEVA CHANGE
I can't put my finger on it, but there's just something about this (terrible) song that makes me feel that it was a contractual requirement.

16. GOT IT TWISTED (REMIX) (FEAT TWISTA)
Here's a switch: the remix uses the same beat as the original, making Mobb Deep one of the only rap acts that forced Twista to conform to their sound, instead of vice versa. Perhaps because of that rule, Twista sounds awkward as shit, but still, not any worse than Hav and P, who changed their lyrics (along with their shirts) for the occasion. This song just isn't very good at all.

FINAL THOUGHTS: Although Havoc and Prodigy endure a grueling effort to prove their worthiness to their new employers, Amerikaz Nightmare is ultimately a complete nightmare to listen to. None of it is especially radio-friendly, which was essentially the kiss of death when it comes to Jive Records: the label terminated its contract with the duo the moment that someone else expressed even a hint of interest. In addition, only a couple of the songs actually appeal to the audience they've somehow maintained since the days of The Infamous, although that group's numbers have dwindled, at least according to the national census taken in 2003. All in all, Amerikaz Nightmare proves that Mobb Deep was/is a lost cause.

BUY OR BURN? You really shouldn't buy this disc. If you already bought it, you should throw it away. If you already burned it, you should thank the supreme being of your choice that you didn't waste the money, and then throw it away. Other than the song listed below, the disc is completely worthless. Yeah, I said it.

BEST TRACKS: "When U Hear The"

-Max

RELATED POSTS:
Read all of the Mobb Deep-related write-ups by clicking here.

Mobb Deep - Free Agents: The Murda Mix Tape (April 22, 2003)

Before Mobb Deep jumped the couch, they could be depended on for gritty street tales accompanied by some trademarked dark-as-fuck theme music. After the balderdash that was Infamy, Havoc and Prodigy lost their grip on the audience, who had already moved on to other ventures, and the duo's sales suffered tremendously. The critical indifference to Infamy wasn't a benefit to them, either. The combination of these effects, plus the fact that their label, Loud Records, was about to fold like an origami moose, led to Mobb Deep being without a record deal for the first time since they were teenagers.

Businessmen that they are, Havoc and Prodigy used their newfound free time to send out resumes to other labels, in the form of Free Agents: The Murda Mix Tape, which they also released to the public, thanks to a one-off distribution deal with Landspeed Records. Considering that only fifty copies seem to have been printed, the album sold out quickly, and is damn near impossible to find on store shelves today: however, since it is a mixtape, after all, everyone that missed out probably already bootlegged it anyway. At least one person that checked their mail on a regular basis was paying attention, though: Mobb Deep soon found themselves signing with Jive Records, home of Justin Timberlake and Britney Spears (which, as you could probably tell, ended up being a huge mistake, but I'll get to that in a later post).

Free Agents: The Murda Mix Tape is far to disjointed to qualify as an actual album, but contains all-new material, in an effort to appeal to the longtime fans that the Mobb still had. Initial pressings of the "album" also contained a second 19-track disc featuring artists that either were somehow affiliated with Mobb Deep (such as producer The Alchemist, Big Noyd, and weed carriers Infamous Mobb) or had done songs with them in the past (all of the other guests). According to Interweb legend, there was even a third disc included with some pressings that featured a bunch of remixes, but I've never heard anything about it until today, so I'll believe it to be bullshit unless someone proves otherwise in the comments.

However, just because this isn't an "album" doesn't mean the critical red pen is put away.

DISC ONE

1. THIS IS NOT SUPPOSED TO BE POSITIVE... (INTRO)
An old Ice-T interview is appropriated as the intro for the mixtape. It fits, but all I could think of was when Ice-T played a kangaroo in Tank Girl.

2. SOLIDIFIED
Losing his record deal apparently hasn't caused Prodigy to think about studying his chosen craft, but he doesn't sound altogether terrible over this unorthodox Havoc beat. Speaking of Hav, he sounds pretty refreshed here; looks like someone did the summer reading like he was supposed to.

3. SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST 2003
It's like these two guys listened to The Infamous one day and decided that rhyming over those beats was a good idea for their demo. Except, in this case, these two guys actually were the guys that originally made The Infamous, and completely missed its point. You can skip this one with no feelings of guilt.

4. PAID IN FULL
Yeah, I was expecting Hav and P to spit over Eric B & Rakim's classic track, too, so I have to give them credit for having an original beat. P starts off promising, but his flow would only deteriorate more quickly if he were bitten by a zombie while in the booth.

5. DOUBLE SHOTS (FEAT BIG NOYD)
I get that this "mixtape" album was intended to show prospective labels that Mobb Deep could still be relevant to today's audience, and could actually sell records if they wanted to, so radio-friendly tracks would obviously have to be part of the deal. Big Noyd doesn't really need to be on here, but otherwise, this song isn't completely horrible. It certainly isn't any good, but it's not horrible.

6. WHAT CAN I DO?
Havoc does the best he can with this gimmicky track, and even manages to spit a hot line at the end of his verse: "They say an unoccupied mind is the devil's playground/so I wrote this [song] to kill time." Prodigy, however, fucks it up with some comically violent overkill.

7. FAVORITE RAPPER
This song is pretty awful. Havoc and Prodigy have realized that they aren't anybody's favorite rapper at this point, so it makes sense that they would start threatening the folks that happen to be your favorite rappers. Still, awful. And more than a little bit desperate.

8. LET'S POP (FEAT DOG)
Contains a piece of advice for guys that you would think is common sense, but whatever: "When you in the guts, be sure to hit the g-spot." Dog, the women of the world thank you.

9. IT'S OVER
You know how a lot of people believe that black Michael Jackson was secretly replaced with white Michael Jackson, and that happened around the time when the drop in talent and the alleged child molestation kicked in? I believe that Prodigy was secretly replaced with decaf while he was in the middle of recording Murda Muzik.

10. THE ILLEST
Havoc actually believes that the definition of success would be to co-host a talk show with Regis Philbin. You would think he would brag about fucking Kelly Ripa doggystyle or something. Anyway, Havoc's verses on here aren't bad.

11. JUST GOT OUT THE BOX...(SKIT)
...

12. NARCOTIC
Now that's what I'm talking about. If "Narcotic" were included on Infamy, maybe I would have liked it a bit more. Nah; that project was doomed from the jump. But this song is pretty good.

13. CLAP FIRST
Wouldn't it actually be cooler if you clapped last, after the other guy runs out of bullets while you're showing off your flexibility and skills at adapting to the situation, and he knows that he's fucked? Maybe I've been watching too many action flicks these days.

14. WATCH THAT N---A
Sure, okay. What am I watching for? Oh. Is that it? That's nothing special. I've seen rappers make bad rap songs before. I like how Prodigy just gave all of the Mobb Deep fans permission to bootleg their shit, though, so you heard the man: get to work, my two readers!

15. CAME UP
Hav and P use the same sample that The Rza gave to Method Man and Redman on their "Cereal Killa". The team of the Abbott, Meth, and Reggie wins the race hands down.

16. DON'T CALL TASHA
Don't you do it! Don't you put that curse on me, Hav and P!

17. ONE TRIBE...(SKIT
...

18. CRADLE TO THE GRAVE FREESTYLE
Uh oh. Hav and P found some of their old beats and decided to spit over them again. This time, they decided to go with a track from The Infamous that wasn't as well-known, but that's still no excuse.

19. TOUGH LOVE FREESTYLE
The beat from "More Trife Life", from Hell On Earth (Mobb Deep's other almost-perfect album), is pinched, but they changed up the title in an effort to trick you. Don't you worry, though: Max is here to pull the rubber masks off of the thieves that robbed the amusement park, and I brought my dog, too.

20. CAN'T FUCK WITH US FREESTYLE
It's like Bizarro Hav and P, or even like listening to the Fugees's "Killing A Soundbwoy With This Song" instead of "Killing Me Softly". Mobb Deep redoes their own song, this time from the Murda Muzik album, and actually come off okay.

21. RIGHT BACK AT YOU FREESTYLE
The original from The Infamous featured both Raekwon and Ghostface Killah. Why try to re-do greatness? Speaking of which...

22. SHOOK ONES FREESTYLE
This is fucking blasphemy. I actually had to choke down vomit during Prodigy's verse. My favorite Mobb Deep song (and yours too, I would guess) will be forever tainted if you hear the older-but-clearly-not-wiser P rhyme about all of the R&B chicks he wants to fuck over this classic beat, completely destroying the original intent of the track. Oh wow, this was a misfire.

DISC TWO

1. BURN SOMETHING (MOBB DEEP FEAT LITTLES)
Other than the guitar, this sounds like an outtake from Infamy. Is that a good thing, though? Not really, but I will admit that Littles, who I am usually not that impressed with, seems to have gotten a smidgen better behind the mic.

2. GET BACK (REMIX) (MOBB DEEP FEAT BIG NOYD)
This is actually pretty good. The Godfather Don beat is very engaging, and Prodigy sounds almost energized, as if he drank six Red Bulls and inhaled a box of Sour Patch Kids before getting to the office that morning.

3. SERIOUS (THE NEW MESSAGE) (1ST INFANTRY FEAT PRODIGY)
1st Infantry really just means The Alchemist on this bonus disc, but even that explanation makes no sense, since 1st Infantry was the name of his album, not his alias. Anyway, Prodigy is buried underneath the instrumental, which is fantastic when it comes to the chorus (which, as you might imagine, rapes and pillages Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five), but not so good when it comes to the rhymes, on which a sleepwalking P runs down a grocery list of societal ills, at least in his first verse.

4. THE MIDNIGHT CREEP (1ST INFANTRY FEAT HAVOC & TWIN GAMBINO)
I usually like Twin's voice, but I'm not really liking his contribution to this beat. As a matter of fact, I wasn't very impressed by the song in general. You can only rap about the same shit so many different ways before you start repeating yourself.

5. FOURTH OF JULY (1ST INFANTRY FEAT EVIDENCE, PRODIGY, & TWIN GAMBINO)
Al has a knack for making his instrumentals sound like they could double as the score to some 1970's crime flick. You'll notice that I didn't say one word about the rappers on this song, though.

6. BACKWARDS (1ST INFANTRY FEAT MOBB DEEP)
Boring-ass raps dressed up in a brand new white tee, crisp khakis, and a fresh pair of Nikes are still boring-ass raps.

7. BANG BANG (BIG NOYD)
This track was renamed "Shoot 'Em Up (Bang Bang) Part 1" on Big Noyd's sophomore release Only The Strong, which was released later in 2003. Kind of gimmicky, but not bad, even though I've always felt that Noyd shouldn't have been the first choice for the instrumental.

8. AIR IT OUT (BIG NOYD FEAT HAVOC)
Another song that Noyd would save for his own album. Noyd completely wastes Al's fantastic beat, which was later used by both Curtis Jackson and Jadakiss for back-and-forth disses that made for better songs. Might be interesting for folks that had no idea that Noyd had dibs on the beat first.

9. BUMP THAT (HAVOC FEAT 50 CENT & BIG NOYD)
Technically a Mobb Deep song, but whatever. Hearing this today, it makes perfect sense that Mobb Deep ended up ditching all of their weed carriers in order to start handling the golf bags of Curtis Jackson themselves; it's pretty obvious that Curtis was setting everything up from the jump, with this spot on their track (which I believe was deleted from Infamy, but I may be wrong).

10. THE FAMILY (SKIT)
Oh, goody. The Mobb managed to fit a skit onto a disc that was supposed to be a bonus disc with extra songs. However did they find the time?

11. MOBB N----Z (INFAMOUS MOBB FEAT PRODIGY)
Swiped from Infamous Mobb's debut album Special Edition, but half of the title has turned up missing (it should actually be called "Mobb N----z (The Sequel)"). If I remember correctly, the original track was just a Jay-Z diss song. This sequel, with such pressing issues having been abandoned, pretty much fucking rocks.

12. KILLA QUENS (INFAMOUS MOBB FEAT BIG NOYD & PRODIGY)
Sounds like a retooled Mobb Deep beat populated by D-grade Queens rappers that didn't have any access to their water. Not bad, but not good; it just is.

13. WE DON'T GIVE A... (INFAMOUS MOBB FEAT HAVOC)
I don't give a ... either.

14. B.I.G. T.W.I.N.S. (TWIN GAMBINO)
Even though the beat sounds like some direct-to-video DJ Premier, the song still sounds really good. The fact that Twin was able to keep this instrumental all to himself is even more impressive: you would think rappers from the world over would have pilfered it for use on their own mixtapes thousands of times over by now.

15. THUN & KICKO (CORMEGA FEAT PRODIGY)
This is the same song that I already reviewed on Cormega's The Realness. Don't make me review it again.

16. WHAT'S POPPIN' (TRAGEDY KHADAFI FEAT HAVOC)
The beat sounds a bit too radio-friendly for the former Intelligent Hoodlum to spit to. Otherwise, it's okay, I suppose.

17. THE HEAT IS ON (UNRELEASED VERSION) (POET FEAT GODFATHER DON & HAVOC)
The original version of Glenn Frey's hit song finally finds its way out of the vaults. At the time of its recording, controversy reared its ugly head, as the song is more overtly violent than anything else in his catalog, but the passage of time can make even the most deviant material sound almost Disney-esque.

18. WHERE YOU AT? (KOOL G. RAP FEAT PRODIGY)
Meh.

19. THUG CHRONICLES (UNRELEASED VERSION) (KOOL G. RAP FEAT HAVOC)
Havoc's only function on the song vocally is to fill in the gaps while G Rap takes a sip from his water bottle. Sadly, there isn't anything particularly memorable about this track.

FINAL THOUGHTS: Free Agents: The Murda Mix Tape is a potpourri or randomness that the Mobb plucked from their vaults, with very little thought given to cohesion or consistency, evidenced by the fact that too many of the songs sound the same, right down to the generic subject matter. This makeshift resume may have garnered the Mobb a new record deal, but this release is in no way representative of what the Mobb was once capable of.

BUY OR BURN? There is no reason that anybody should buy this, and I'm not just saying that because you wouldn't be able to find it to purchase anyway. Mobb Deep's day in the sun has passed, and all this "album" does is bring that fact right up to the forefront. Avoid, avoid, avoid.

BEST TRACKS: "Narcotic"; "Get Back (Remix); "Mobb N----z"; "B.I.G. T.W.I.N.S."

-Max

RELATED POSTS:
Read all of the Mobb Deep write-ups by clicking here.

Mobb Deep - Infamy (December 11, 2001)

FADE IN:

INT. LIVING ROOM - EVENING

We are in a rather large living room, decorated sparsely with furniture, ashtrays, a giant television near the front wall, and a large tacky velvet print of Al Pacino as Scarface mounted near the entrance. We watch as PRODIGY, a young rapper in his late twenties/early thirties, sits on the floor of the room, playing with a toy train set. His eyes widen with glee as the train makes safe passage through a plastic tunnel, but we can detect a look of sadness in those eyes. We can see several discarded toys laying around the area, including an Etch-A-Sketch, some Legos, and tiny plastic toy soldiers, in addition to an opened package wrapped in now-torn craft paper, a remnant of the day's mail.

MAN'S VOICE (O.S.)
I'm home!

The front door OPENS and we see HAVOC, another young rapper in his late twenties/early thirties, enter the room. (His entrance is accompanied by raucous applause on the soundtrack.) He is carrying a black briefcase and is dressed as a sharp businessman, albeit with a blue bandanna tied around his forehead. He removes his heavy coat and lays it on the sofa. The smile on his face quickly melts into concern as he sees his friend playing on the floor.

HAVOC
Oh, no! Oh, dear! What happened, dun? Are you alright?

PRODIGY

(softly crying)
Nuh-nuh-nothing. (sniffle)

HAVOC scans the room and notices the opened package on the floor. He reaches for it, but PRODIGY grabs it first, and refuses to let go. With a scowl from HAVOC, PRODIGY relents, and we watch as the package is torn open. HAVOC pulls the contents out of the box: a pink tutu, intended for a ballerina no more than nine years old, and a card. HAVOC stares at this odd gift with disdain as he opens the card with his free hand. We see that PRODIGY is turned away. Inside the card, we read the following: "Best Wishes! Shawn C. Carter". HAVOC looks up, in hopes of catching PRODIGY's eye, but the other rapper is choosing instead to move his train to the next station.

HAVOC
P...this...this is nothing to be ashamed of, okay?

PRODIGY
Yes it is, dun!

HAVOC
Listen to me. That was a long time ago, at lease three years.
Things change!

PRODIGY
But...the tutu...and what about Summer Jam...

HAVOC
Forget about Summer Jam! Those pictures don't mean
anything! That mean old Shawn Carter is just...a bully,
nothing more!

PRODIGY
A b-b-bully?

HAVOC
Exactly, dun. And the best way for us to handle a bully
is to buck up and ignore him, and get back in the studio
to record album number five.

PRODIGY
Album five? Nah, dun, I got my thing going with these trains.
I'm about to add a new route...

HAVOC
(ignoring Prodigy)
Yes, album number five. You see, sometimes it's best to bury
yourself in work in order to forget your troubles. And it's more
productive than playing with your trains or cultivating your
nasty cocaine habit.

PRODIGY
I don't know, dun. I don't think I'm up for an album right now.
I used up all my good rhymes on my solo!

HAVOC
Those were your good rhymes? Anyway, that's no problem!
You can just string together patches of lyrics from other songs,
and nobody will notice! Trust me, everything will be okay.

PRODIGY
(sniffling)
O-okay. But what about you? What about the beats?

HAVOC
(smiling)
Take a look at these.

HAVOC OPENS the briefcase, which we can see is filled with unlabeled CD-Rs, along with a small ZipLoc bag bursting with weed, a lighter, and a single 5th Avenue candy bar.

HAVOC
These are all of the beats that I couldn't give away! We can
use these, and if we need others, I'm sure our boy Al knows
some people that can knock something out in like three
minutes!

PRODIGY
Is...is that candy bar for me?

HAVOC
Of course, dun! You know I'm always looking out for you.

HAVOC hands the candy bar to PRODIGY. He notices the discarded Etch-A-Sketch on the floor around him.

HAVOC
Shawn got you so worked up that you brought out the
Etch-A-Sketch, huh? Why aren't you playing with that?

PRODIGY
I was, but it got shook, and my drawing ran away.

HAVOC and PRODIGY share a knowing laugh, along with the canned studio audience on the soundtrack. Suddenly, we hear a doorbell RING.

PRODIGY
(shaken)
What's that?

HAVOC
Relax, dun. I took the liberty of ordering in tonight.
Now don't forget to work on those verses, since we still
owe the label an album!

PRODIGY
(visibly much happier)
Okay.

Instead, PRODIGY goes back to playing with the train set, while we follow HAVOC to the door. He opens it fully, and we see NOYD, a pizza delivery guy of similar age to the two rappers, shivering in the cold.

NOYD
Yeah, you guys order the QB special, um, with extra beef?

We hear laughter on the soundtrack, while HAVOC maintains a "Who, me?" look on his face.

HAVOC
That's me! Hey, I thought I ordered some bottled waters with this.

NOYD
Yeah, but, um, sorry, we're out. The plant in Queensbridge,
where we get our supply, shut down a few months ago.

HAVOC
Nuts! Now what are we going to do?

As HAVOC PAYS NOYD for the pizzas, we hear a smattering of applause, and credits appear while closing music plays as we...

FADE OUT.

1. PRAY FOR ME (FEAT LIL MO)
Blah. Seriously?

2. GET AWAY
I seem to remember this song being one of the singles from Infamy, probably because of the vocal on the hook, but it's not any good.

3. BOUNCE
Truly pathetic.

4. CLAP
Not completely terrible, but for people who were praying for "Shook Ones Pt. III", you would be better served falling out of a moving vehicle on the interstate.

5. KILL THAT N---A
Still not impressed. Hav and P may have lost a fan with this one.

6. MY GAT'S SPITTING (FEAT INFAMOUS MOBB)
Such a fantastic hook. And by fantastic, I mean "shitty". This is, of course, the requisite weed-carrier track, although as I've mentioned in past posts, I actually don't mind Mobb Deep's baggage handlers, so overall this is simply "okay".

7. HANDCUFFS
Interesting choice of beat, Havoc: this sounds like something from an early-80's crooked cop film. Too bad the song sucks. (I will give Havoc credit for trying something different, though, especially since Prodigy seemed to skip this studio session entirely.)

8. HEY LUV (ANYTHING) (FEAT 112)
The second single, also known as "the radio-friendly single Mobb Deep was forced to record in order to move units since their label had no faith in them otherwise". Turns out that the label was right. It's ironic that this song is actually one of the better ones on the disc. This song would mark the last time I would hear Mobb Deep on non-New York radio, at least until they popped up on Curtis Jackson's remix to his "Outta Control". Since this song was a minor hit (I remember female radio personalities around my way declaring this song as a favorite), it's pretty hilarious to note that the fans of "Hey Luv (Anything)" that purchased Infamy would be presented with shit like "Kill That N---a", which will be played at bat mitzfahs until the world collapses.

9. THE LEARNING (BURN) (FEAT BIG NOYD & VIDA)
I remember Hova getting his panties in a bunch about Vida participating in the video for this banger, since Vida was with the Murder Inc. crew (with which Jay had, inexplicably, aligned himself, probably because they were on the same label and it was easier), threatening, I don't know, legal action, or to possibly throw a turkey at Irv Gotti, if she appeared in the video with his sworn enemies Mobb Deep, so poof! she disappears, although her voice is clearly heard on the hook. Yes, I just wrote that this song is a banger, but unlike most good rap songs, this one came with a terrible price. Prodigy's lyrical abilities have all but permanently vanished, as evidenced by his verse. He starts off with "You'se a bitch ass n---a, I'll have you killed" (is that truly gangsta, to threaten to have someone killed without doing the work yourself?); by the time he ends with the trite "Fuck all you n----s, fuck all them faggots", you will literally want to cry, and then punch a fucking hole in your speakers for enabling you to hear such a horrific contribution to hip hop. Never has a rapper fallen from grace with such totality. Fuck, even Eminem still occasionally shines. P, we don't deserve this kind of treatment. Note, however, that this song is still a fucking banger.

10. LIVE FOUL
It hurts me, it cuts to the fucking bone, to know that Prodigy isn't even trying with the whole of Infamy. Shawn Carter really affected your work that much? It was one verse in a four-verse track, P!

11. HURT N----S (FEAT BIG NOYD)
In the context of the verse, I understand the reasoning why, but P, comparing yourself to Ray Benzino, for any reason, is usually career suicide.

12. GET AT ME
Meh.

13. I WON'T FALL
Nice Ghost Dog reference, P! But can we please impose a moratorium in creepy laughter incorporated into the instrumental, please?? Seriously, Scott Storch, this shit isn't funny.

14. CRAWLIN'
Finally, P actually says something not-indirectly about Jay-Z! However, this dis will only make you appreciate "The Takeover" more.

15. NOTHING LIKE HOME (FEAT LITTLES)
Still not impressed by Littles, but his verse here is actually pretty good.

16. THERE I GO AGAIN (FEAT RON ISLEY)
Of all the people that probably shouldn't appear on any more rap songs singing the hook, Ron Isley would be near the top of my list. However, he created "Between The Sheets", so I can't ever really be mad at him.

The following song is listed as a bonus track:

17. SO LONG
This song, surprisingly, features the best lyrics of the entire fucking album. Hav and P shine on their version of Nas's "One Love". Why was this a bonus track, exactly?

FINAL THOUGHTS: Infamy, the fifth album from the infamous Mobb Deep (and their fourth and final release for the almighty Loud Records), is terrible. It's so bad, you'll want to toss your (hopefully purchased, if my write-ups have meant anything for my two readers at this point) copies of The Infamous and Hell On Earth into the food processor, simply because those two seminal classics tempted you with promise. Infamy seems to be a remnant from Hav and P's blue period, when all of their output came bundled with an inferiority complex. Havoc, seemingly sensing that Prodigy was overdosing on a beef with Jigga that he would inevitably be destroyed by (and I'm sure Nasir Jones's comments didn't help either), tries with all his might to pick up the lyrical slack. However, it should be noted that it usually takes more than one album for someone who is best known as a producer to advance his or her writing skills. This album would be playing on an endless loop in the third circle of Hell.

BUY OR BURN? Fuck no, don't buy this shit! Mobb Deep collectors (like myself, unfortunately) probably already have this in their collections, but are probably wondering why. Everyone else, find the tracks listed below online, and if you ever see Infamy on the street, be sure to quickly cross over to the other side.

BEST TRACKS: "The Learning (Burn)"; "Nothing Like Home"; "Hey Luv (Anything)"

-Max

RELATED POSTS:
Mobb Deep - Juvenile Hell
Mobb Deep - The Infamous
Mobb Deep - Hell On Earth
Mobb Deep - Murda Musik
Prodigy of Mobb Deep - H.N.I.C.
Big Noyd - Episodes Of A Hustla