Mobb Deep "Amerikaz Nightmare"
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viibe gave it four mics.
XXL gave it an XL.
here's a XXL story about it. not much of a review, though:
Meet the new Mobb Deep. Same as the old Mobb Deep—but with a new attitude. Yeah, they parted ways with Violator management head Chris Lighty, but the QB duns are taking control of their own destiny—still climbing, still shinin’.
The most important thing to know about Mobb Deep’s Kejaun “Havoc” Muchita is this: the man is dedicated to hip-hop. This reporter can make such a statement with confidence because the first time I ever met Havoc, son was barely 13 years old.
This was back in Queens, back in 1987. We were blocks away from his infamous homeland, the Queensbridge Houses (a.k.a. the largest public housing community in America). Blazing summertime in the p.m. 36th Avenue train station. It was me and this kid from Brownsville who wrote “Nash” and his man “DMC” (no relation to the rapper) and his man “Creo.” We were in high school, I was 16, there to slide onto a train parked on the middle track (officially known as “the lay-up”) and plaster the inside with purple-ink markers stolen from the supermarket. (Those were the days, poppie.)
The 36th Avenue stop is elevated. The best way to hit a lay-up on an elevated line is to climb up them girders. High up. Some dare-devil shit. It’s easier (and safer) if you hop onto the tracks directly from the platform. But easier to get spotted, too. Climb up between stations, and you’re in there like doggie day care.
It’s dark, humid. Me and Nash are fishing into the bag with the boxes of 99-cent Big Macs, trying to get those last drops of fuel up in us. We can see DMC’s high-top fade boppin’ in the distance. I recognize Creo. “Whuddups” are exchanged.
“Yo,” says Creo, “this is my little man, Nal. He gets down for his.” Me and Nash look at each other like, “Shorty?” We’re skeptical. It’s Nal’s first time ever hitting trains. D proceeds to break down the schematics. We were deliberating how we should do this like Brutus. “Fuck it, let’s just go offa the platform,” somebody said, lazy toys we were. Nal could sense that us older dudes were sleeping on him—but this new-jack wasn’t interested in faking Jax. A minute later, we look up 60 feet and behold a 13-year-old Spider-Man climbing and clinging onto them girders for dear life. Of course, this was the little man we now know as Havoc.
On a pungent New York shitty summer’s day 17 years later, Havoc is sitting in a nondescript conference room at his new label, Jive Records. His old friend Alfredo “Littles” Bryan sits next to him, and an old graf-writing acquaintance has set a tape recorder on the table. In a few hours, he and his longtime partner in Mobb, Albert “Prodigy” Johnson, are off to Europe for an eight-day promo run. Their sixth album, Amerikaz Nightmare, is slated to drop in two weeks. Hav’s phone won’t stop ringing. Between the new album and the great demand that his outside production work is garnering (homeboy produced Jadakiss’ banger, “Why”), he’s having a hard time finishing his early morning ham sandwich. Mobb Deep world has been going through changes lately (like Ozzy, Bowie and Buddy Miles). The duo has split with longtime manager (and newly appointed Jive Records vice president of urban music) Chris Lighty. The streets are buzzing. Bad blood? Word has it that all the attention Violator clients 50 Cent and his G-Unit soldiers have been receiving is behind the breakup.
“It was like a marriage,” Havoc says. “[Our relationship] had its ups and downs. I don’t regret being with [Violator] at all. It wasn’t nothing like, ‘Oh, fuck Violator.’ After a while, people outgrow each other. And you just gotta move on. People looking from the outside in could probably assume that, being that 50 is there or G-Unit... that because they’re so big right now, no focus would be on us. But there’s a lot of people at Violator who handle different jobs; it’s not like the whole of Violator handles G-Unit. So I don’t really think that had anything to do with it.” (“We speak weekly,” says Lighty. “I always want to see a Mobb Deep album do well. They used to get arrested every day; now they own homes. They still have a long way to grow with their careers, and I think they’re going to be successful.”)
Management duties have been picked up by Queensbridgians Littles (who raps his ass off as well) and Norman “Storm” Bell. The idea is that, well, Mobb Deep is a family, so running a family business is the only way to do it. Since 1993’s Juvenile Hell (4th & Broadway), through ’95’s The Infamous, ’96’s Hell On Earth, ’99’s Murda Musik and 2001’s Infamy (Loud), putting out something for the hood has been job one for Havoc and Prodigy. New label, new management? Pay it no mind, Amerikaz Nightmare (Infamous/Jive) doesn’t stray far from the blueprint that Mobb Deep’s finest jammies have been built from. Heads won’t be mad at Havoc lines like these heard on “Dump”: “That’s that hard shit/Hit a nigga in his car shit/It’s war, bitch!” And Prodigy’s boasts and toasts are, without question, crazily up to snuff: “We the only niggas you know that fuck they POs/They push our files to the top/We still on parole.” (“Win Or Lose.”) The beats are ominous and bassy; lonely keyboard pinches create an atmosphere of desperation. It’s murda muzik—killah dillah thrillahs—and the Mobb are untouchable in this region.
But Havoc is feeling good these days. He’s looking like a grown-ass businessman, focused on making Mobb Deep the next George Foreman Grill. With his bald head, he’s actually looking more and more like hip-hop’s Ving Rhames. Mobb’s fifty-fiddy, split-the-profits-down-the-middle deal with Jive makes him smile. Still, he hasn’t forgotten that the road to Jive was hard-knocked with the nastiest of industry cobblestones. Like, he recounts the day that his old label died.
XXL gave it an XL.
here's a XXL story about it. not much of a review, though:
Meet the new Mobb Deep. Same as the old Mobb Deep—but with a new attitude. Yeah, they parted ways with Violator management head Chris Lighty, but the QB duns are taking control of their own destiny—still climbing, still shinin’.
The most important thing to know about Mobb Deep’s Kejaun “Havoc” Muchita is this: the man is dedicated to hip-hop. This reporter can make such a statement with confidence because the first time I ever met Havoc, son was barely 13 years old.
This was back in Queens, back in 1987. We were blocks away from his infamous homeland, the Queensbridge Houses (a.k.a. the largest public housing community in America). Blazing summertime in the p.m. 36th Avenue train station. It was me and this kid from Brownsville who wrote “Nash” and his man “DMC” (no relation to the rapper) and his man “Creo.” We were in high school, I was 16, there to slide onto a train parked on the middle track (officially known as “the lay-up”) and plaster the inside with purple-ink markers stolen from the supermarket. (Those were the days, poppie.)
The 36th Avenue stop is elevated. The best way to hit a lay-up on an elevated line is to climb up them girders. High up. Some dare-devil shit. It’s easier (and safer) if you hop onto the tracks directly from the platform. But easier to get spotted, too. Climb up between stations, and you’re in there like doggie day care.
It’s dark, humid. Me and Nash are fishing into the bag with the boxes of 99-cent Big Macs, trying to get those last drops of fuel up in us. We can see DMC’s high-top fade boppin’ in the distance. I recognize Creo. “Whuddups” are exchanged.
“Yo,” says Creo, “this is my little man, Nal. He gets down for his.” Me and Nash look at each other like, “Shorty?” We’re skeptical. It’s Nal’s first time ever hitting trains. D proceeds to break down the schematics. We were deliberating how we should do this like Brutus. “Fuck it, let’s just go offa the platform,” somebody said, lazy toys we were. Nal could sense that us older dudes were sleeping on him—but this new-jack wasn’t interested in faking Jax. A minute later, we look up 60 feet and behold a 13-year-old Spider-Man climbing and clinging onto them girders for dear life. Of course, this was the little man we now know as Havoc.
On a pungent New York shitty summer’s day 17 years later, Havoc is sitting in a nondescript conference room at his new label, Jive Records. His old friend Alfredo “Littles” Bryan sits next to him, and an old graf-writing acquaintance has set a tape recorder on the table. In a few hours, he and his longtime partner in Mobb, Albert “Prodigy” Johnson, are off to Europe for an eight-day promo run. Their sixth album, Amerikaz Nightmare, is slated to drop in two weeks. Hav’s phone won’t stop ringing. Between the new album and the great demand that his outside production work is garnering (homeboy produced Jadakiss’ banger, “Why”), he’s having a hard time finishing his early morning ham sandwich. Mobb Deep world has been going through changes lately (like Ozzy, Bowie and Buddy Miles). The duo has split with longtime manager (and newly appointed Jive Records vice president of urban music) Chris Lighty. The streets are buzzing. Bad blood? Word has it that all the attention Violator clients 50 Cent and his G-Unit soldiers have been receiving is behind the breakup.
“It was like a marriage,” Havoc says. “[Our relationship] had its ups and downs. I don’t regret being with [Violator] at all. It wasn’t nothing like, ‘Oh, fuck Violator.’ After a while, people outgrow each other. And you just gotta move on. People looking from the outside in could probably assume that, being that 50 is there or G-Unit... that because they’re so big right now, no focus would be on us. But there’s a lot of people at Violator who handle different jobs; it’s not like the whole of Violator handles G-Unit. So I don’t really think that had anything to do with it.” (“We speak weekly,” says Lighty. “I always want to see a Mobb Deep album do well. They used to get arrested every day; now they own homes. They still have a long way to grow with their careers, and I think they’re going to be successful.”)
Management duties have been picked up by Queensbridgians Littles (who raps his ass off as well) and Norman “Storm” Bell. The idea is that, well, Mobb Deep is a family, so running a family business is the only way to do it. Since 1993’s Juvenile Hell (4th & Broadway), through ’95’s The Infamous, ’96’s Hell On Earth, ’99’s Murda Musik and 2001’s Infamy (Loud), putting out something for the hood has been job one for Havoc and Prodigy. New label, new management? Pay it no mind, Amerikaz Nightmare (Infamous/Jive) doesn’t stray far from the blueprint that Mobb Deep’s finest jammies have been built from. Heads won’t be mad at Havoc lines like these heard on “Dump”: “That’s that hard shit/Hit a nigga in his car shit/It’s war, bitch!” And Prodigy’s boasts and toasts are, without question, crazily up to snuff: “We the only niggas you know that fuck they POs/They push our files to the top/We still on parole.” (“Win Or Lose.”) The beats are ominous and bassy; lonely keyboard pinches create an atmosphere of desperation. It’s murda muzik—killah dillah thrillahs—and the Mobb are untouchable in this region.
But Havoc is feeling good these days. He’s looking like a grown-ass businessman, focused on making Mobb Deep the next George Foreman Grill. With his bald head, he’s actually looking more and more like hip-hop’s Ving Rhames. Mobb’s fifty-fiddy, split-the-profits-down-the-middle deal with Jive makes him smile. Still, he hasn’t forgotten that the road to Jive was hard-knocked with the nastiest of industry cobblestones. Like, he recounts the day that his old label died.
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