Terrance Hamlin bka 9th Prince of Killarmy is still in prison when this mixtape comes out which anticipates by a month what should be the rapper's second official release, his second LP, "Prince of New York". It should, because the album won't be released on September 11, 2007, and will be pushed back one semester to March 2008. The cover of this mixtape is quite explanatory: New York skyline in the background, with the Statue of Liberty rising to the left, in the darkness of the city sky the W symbol of the Wu-Tang Clan emerges brilliantly, on the right in white the name of the author which is humbly reported in lower case. Below is the rapper's label presenting the mixtape, hosted by Beretta 9 & Shogun Assason. This "hosted" means absolutely nothing, the two Killarmy rappers appear on the tape respectively twice and once in the span of twenty-eight tracks, and they are also thanked on the cover together with other guys, unlike Dom Pachino and Killa Sin. While this last emcee is present in the tape with a contribution in "Murder Venue", the absence of references to Dom Pachino isn't accidental. At the center of the disc, thoughtfully, 9th Prince.
The tape is mixed and crafted by DYP tha Goldynchild using tracks from Killarmy albums, from 9th Prince's first album, from what will be his second CD and from other records in which the rapper is present as a guest. A quite enviable production team emerges from this curious selection: his older brother RZA, 4th Disciple, Bronze Nazareth, Allah Mathematics, Rebel Dainja, Mike "Trauma" D, William Cooper, Moongod Allah, Russ Prez, Armand Van Helden, Monster, Gooch and Cheese. Guests include four of the five Killarmy members, all excluding Dom Pachino, RZA, U-God and Raekwon from the Wu-Tang Clan, Trife da God of TMF, Christbearer of Northstar, Blue Raspberry, Killarmy affiliate Hoffa and DYP Tha Goldynchild. Islord is the main guest of the tape with four appearances all concentrated in the second half of the listening.
At twenty-eight tracks the tape seems longer than it is, instead it contains just over an hour of material, merit of the fact that almost all of the chosen pieces have been cut from the original verses, the few uncut tracks are taken directly from his two albums, the second still unreleased at the time of the tape's release. This looks like an attempt to compile some of the best 9th Prince songs, but on closer inspection, it looks more like a tape of revenge and pique towards the former friend now enemy (with whom he'll later also make peace) Dom Pachino.
9th Prince, in fact, takes almost all the tracks in which he's together with Dom Pachino and removes his contribution to keep his own and that of some other interpreter, trying to claim that he's the main voice of all those tracks and that he's the one who keeps them going, he can do it even by himself. Unfortunately for him, these sixty-five minutes demonstrate the exact opposite and his statements are instantly blown away like a house of cards on a moderately-speed fan. The tape shows us that the 9th isn't able to handle all those tracks on his own or, better, that he's unable to carry them forward without another interpreter who's better than him at least lyrically, and this figure in the past has turned out to be Dom Pachino, more often than not. While listening to this tape, it's evident that something is missing, and the removal of Dom Pachino's verses from the songs ends up almost as an involuntary homage to the strength of the removed verses and their lyrical goodness rather than a flexing of the muscles by 9th Prince. This can be seen sensationally in the final track "Feel It", where 9th Prince removes the best verse (coincidentally, Dom Pachino's) and keeps the other two, but is equally stripped, from the final text recited by Islord.
In this way, the boy creates a tape that says absolutely nothing, it's almost useless and goes totally unnoticed among hip-hop fans. It's a shame, because the tape retains some gems. It starts with two skits, then it opens by cutting a song from Killarmy's second album, 9th Prince (or whoever for him) excludes the verses of Dom Pachino and Killa Sin. Then the tape delves into a teaser of one of the tracks from his future LP, "The Writer", in my personal opinion this is one of his best produced songs, because the producer Gooch uses an exquisite sample from "Exodus" by Les Baxter.
This is followed by another song from Killarmy's second CD which sees the only presence of Shogun Assason, the first accredited guest of the tape, so track number six I believe is a single verse of U-God from Ghostface Killah's debut album. "Militant" is taken from the third effort of the group Killarmy, the verses of Dom Pachino and Shogun are removed. On the eighth track comes the first choice not to have undergone cuts, it's a collaboration with his brother RZA taken from the debut of 9th Prince on the production of 4th Disciple. The following two tracks are proposed the next year in the author's second studio album. "Full Moon" features one of two guest appearances from Killa Sin, while "Cold Wind" sees the removal of verses from Tommy Whispers and Kryme Life, both featured on 9th Prince's first CD.
"War Face" is a track from Killarmy's first CD, here the verses of Beretta 9, Killa Sin and Shogun are removed, Hoffa's is kept and one of Raekwon is added. Pick number fourteen is a rare solo cut by the lead rapper, it precedes "Murder Venue", track from Killarmy's second disc that keeps the verse of Killa Sin and the hook of Islord, but eliminates the contributions of Dom Pachino and Beretta 9. After three skits in row, two songs included in "Prince of New York" arrive, including a teaser of the title track, one of the best songs in the 9th Prince discography. "Last Poet" is skit length, but originally a song from Killarmy's second album, Dom Pachino and Islord's verses are cut. In "Roll with the Rush" we have the "masterpiece" of this tape, unfortunately not for the music: in this case the lyrical contributions of No Smiles (aka Tommy Whispers of TMF) and Dom Pachino are excluded, this is nothing new, it has already happened four times up to this moment and it will happen even more times in the few songs that will follow.
But this is really a song by Dom Pachino, from his solo debut album "Tera Iz Him", only the verse of 9th Prince and that of Trife da God, credited here as a guest, are kept. "Foolish Way" comes directly from the first CD of 9th Prince, while the following cut comes from the second Gravediggaz LP and is perhaps the only track that totally clashes with the other 27. In order not to leave traditions aside, the guys continue to cut stanzas, here Frukwan and Poetic are removed. "Lady Sings the Blues" is featured on Killarmy's last CD before the breakup of the group and sees the umpteenth, but not yet last, verse by Dom Pachino that 9th Prince doesn't want us to listen to. "Nuttin" is one of the most appreciable songs from the first album of the West Coast Northstar group and maintains the traditions of this mixtape excluding both the verse of Dom Pachino and that of Meko, one of the two rappers who made up the group. "Which Way You Going" is a curious excerpt, because it comes from an album by Solomon Childs, "The Wake". The boy is honored in this mixtape by 9th Prince, together with many others, including Cappadonna, 12 O'Clock, Tommy Whispers and Immortal Technique, but his verse is removed, together with that of the usual Dom Pachino, while the one is kept by Beretta 9. Completely aptly rounding off what is absolutely the most poignant moment in Killarmy's discography, "Feel It": the fact that Dom Pachino's excellent opening verse is also removed from this classic cut — 9th isn't at his level [even] here — is one of the low points of this project, although it was born mainly to cut ex-friend's verses more than anything else.
The tape represents some of the best moments in 9th Prince's artistic career and could be a lot better and a decent listen even for the casual listener, if the boy accepted what appears to be a certainty cemented even in this tape, that is, that his legacy appears to be linked to that of Dom Pachino more than he wants to admit. 4/10.
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