In 2003, the younger brother of RZA Terrance "9th Prince" Hamlin debuts with his own solo album. Raised between Steubenville, Ohio, and Staten Island, New York, this boy attends from a privileged position (not literally, given where and how he had to live in that period) at the birth of the Wu-Tang Clan, growing up with the future members of one of the most famous groups in the history of music. After introducing RZA to his young neighbor and almost peer Shyheim, who quickly becomes Wu-Tang's youngest affiliate, towards the end of the nineties, 9th Prince has the possibility to create his own group on the path traced by the Wu-Tang Clan: one of the earliest and most successful Killa Beez groups are born with the name of Killarmy. After a couple of LPs that arouse the interest of the public and critics, following the third release, Killarmy disband and the members of the group take separate directions. This is the second solo album by Killarmy, released a year after that of Dom Pachino.
The production is provided by 9th Prince, True Master, 4th Disciple, RZA, Falling Down, Rebel Dainja, Storm, Freedom and Cheese. The guests are RZA, Killarmy, TMF, Rubbabandz of GP Wu, PR Terrorist aka Dom Pachino and Ruthless Bastards. 9th Prince, who after using the monikers Madman and Iron Fingers, takes his name from a kung-fu movie, "Shaolin Prince" (1983), as is tradition for the Wu-Tang rappers, he tries to bring back all the members of Killarmy in his first CD, crediting the group in two tracks, however, the songs are performed only by Islord in "Generation Next", and by Islord himself together with Dom Pachino in "Slang Killaz". The TMF are credited in two pieces, in the first there are Trife and Tommy Whispers, in the second Tommy Whispers and Kryme Life. Ruthless Bastards include only Infrared and Truck.
The music chosen by 9th Prince is very good, the production is precise and effective, boom bap with excellent samples, solid drums and bass lines, there are no flaws. The record starts slowly like a diesel and improves with each passing minute, in particular, it's the arrival behind the keyboards of 4th Disciple in "Generation Next" to bring the record upstairs. From the lyrical point of view, 9th Prince deviates from the warfare arguments of Killarmy. The themes chosen by the artist are simple and revolve around thug rap topics, threats, waving weapons, representing, bragging, various gangsterisms, and when he's not doing any of those things, he dedicates a couple of tracks to the girls, or reminds us of things like the fact that he's the cousin of Ol' Dirty Bastard.
The rapping style chosen by the author is energetic, inspired and hardcore, and is noteworthy because it sounds significantly better than his previous contributions on the Killarmy albums. To complete the disc there are two previously recorded tracks, "Tribute to the 5th Brother" comes from the compilation "Protect Ya Neck Collection, Vol. 1" (2002) and the last track is the same as Killarmy, from their third album (2001). Released by Armyourself, the album is surprising because, if you hadn't listened to them both, you couldn't say that 9th Prince has a much better debut album than that of the more highly rated brother RZA, given the résumé of the two guys. And it's musically better, as well as lyrically, even if the lyrics are average.
Afraid of not attracting enough audience with his first effort, the rapper promotes the record as a fourth Killarmy album (in fact you can find it under the group's catalog on other sites, despite the group being unofficially disbanded at the time) starring himself. The qualitatively questionable original cover is self-explanatory, and is then replaced with another cover in the reissue many years later, with a design certainly no better, in which he places a couple of women, a colorful reference to the Killa Beez and completely excludes the name of the Killarmy, having understood the strength of his artistic name after having sold the few thousand physical copies printed in less time than he had foreseen. Listening is recommended to Wu stans, until that Killa Sin LP comes out this might be the best debut from a rapper of Killarmy.
Rating: 7/10.
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