Killah Priest — Priesthood

After the success of his debut album "Heavy Mental" (1998) and the flop of his second solo album "View from Masada" (2000), in 2001 Brooklyn rapper Walter Reed released his third solo studio album in four years and the third under three different monikers: after the initial Killah Priest and the subsequent Masada, now the boy, already a member of Sunz of Man and affiliated with Wu-Tang, becomes Priesthood, which also takes the title of his new album.

The album's main producers are the unknown Los Angeles beatmaker Nirocist, practically making his debut on the underground circuit with this project, and Luminati, stage name of Louis Lombard III, guy who co-founded Killah Priest's label Proverbs Records with the emcee and also collaborated with Canibus, founding the Mic Club Music label and Archives Music together with him. The rest of the beats are provided by Priest aka Killah Priest, Daddy Rose and amateurs Nastee, Pedrom, Ascended Masters, accompanied by thick live instrumentation provided by Nathan Oberman playing bass and guitar and Krown on guitar. Mixing is done by Booker T and Kenny McCloud. The guests include George Clinton, 4 Horsemen, Ty-N, Funkadelic, P-Funk Ladies, Maccabees and Luminati.

"Blackball Me" is the introductory choice, it lasts five minutes and is a bad start, because Luminati's beat is dull, while the author describes the obstacles he faced, including the MCA Records, label to which Geffen had entrusted him after it had cut its hip-hop division. MCA deemed the lyrical content Priest created for his "View from Masada" album too controversial and preferred to keep it hidden in the underground circuit and not to promote the project, rather than giving him more visible mainstream exposure and contributed decisively to slowing down his career, this is the version of the famous (ex) affiliate of the Wu-Tang Clan. The second choice is "Madness", a track that deals with a street story and is a violent piece on an acceptable Nirocist beat, “My Hood” also stays on streets and is supported by a good beat made by the unnamed beatmaker Nastee.

When "Horsementalk" arrives, the first of several annoying cracks in this project presents itself: the cut sees the baptism of Horsemen aka The Four Horsemen, a group formed in 2000 and composed of Killah Priest, Ras Kass, Canibus and Kurupt. Nirocist doesn't exactly do a memorable job behind the keyboards, devising a rhythm that fails to support the performers' delivery and the guys can't come up with the banger that this track full of heavyweights on the mic should be. George Clinton drops into "Come With Me" on Nastee's second and final beat. These passages show you, if necessary, that the author is undecided whether to remain on the religious and philosophical themes that led him to success with his solo debut or stick to the busy and bottled up evergreen gangsta rap lane or even try to mix these themes together like Sunz of Man did in the mid to late nineties, with cryptic lyrics and messy, messy, imaginative streams of consciousness.

When tune number six arrives, the disc goes downhill and struggles to recover for at least a good ten minutes. There's Pedrom behind the keyboards, for the first and last time. He doesn't do a good job, Priest sounds bad here. There's an interlude, they're actually spoken poetry interludes or something, I don't care. Priest cuts a gangster excerpt for the eighth choice, the beat of Luminati & Nirocist doesn't accompany him adequately. Nirocist is also credited on "Heat of the Moment", the production still doesn't work. "C U When I Get There" is one of the rare productions guessed by Luminati and coincides with one of the best moments proposed by Killah Priest on this album: the boy offers a good single verse in which he thinks about the past and his lost friends over a melodic and harmonious production where everything seems to work, even that drum too clear, clean and hard to get along with those sentimental and melancholic violins. This tenth choice, which turns out to be better than usual, kicks off a swing in the quality of this album, with good and not so good tracks.

In "The One" there are George Clinton, Funkadelic and P-Funk Ladies on a Nirocist beat, yet the song doesn't take off. "Thug Revelations" features one of Killah Priest's many bands, the Maccabees, formed together with friends Daddy Rose and Salhaudin, who grew up with him in Brownsville. The guest boys, who are also part of Black Rose Kartel / The Rose Family, provide lyrics similar to those of Sunz of Man and the first Killah Priest, full of religious, biblical references, ancient history and scattered gangsterism. Priest contributes to the track with the last verse and themes similar to those offered by the other two performers, the main rapper proves to be on a different level, increasing the violent content with gangsterism and frayed hard thug lines, throwing a series of random prophecy bars, from the invasion of far-right militants in the streets to peoples getting new platinum dentures. The beat created by Daddy Rose is okay, but it's not great.

"My Life" is there, it's a second union of efforts between Luminati and Nirocist and seems to do everything not to stand out from the rest of the tracklist, it's succeeded by a spoken word interlude. "The Law" is another no moment killed by messy, shoddy and chaotic drum machine, beat made by Nirocist together with Ascended Masters. The final cut is "Theme Song", Killah Priest's third solo studio album ends on a high note: here the author is precise, confident, slick with a thoughtful flow in a deeply soulful track, he flies on this beat with casual boasts and threats. Good bass, great wonderful strings, sparse downtempo drum, Nirocist brings out a masterpiece here, good hook sung by the author. By a wide margin it's the best moment of the project.

The music, created by unknown beatmakers, sounds better than his previous album, the set could be better than this, but it could easily be worse: in general, the production is weak, simple, soft and it can't handle the Priest bars which are too thick and dense. The author economizes on rhythms and he's not rewarded by this choice which seems almost forced. The lyrics mix religious, socio-conscious, political, there's a lot of boasting, threats, gangsterism and thugging, combined with narratives, street stories, criminal stories, violence, philosophy and metaphysics. Lyrically, Masada isn't at his top and he demonstrates it in several situations, nevertheless, some enthusiasts may still appreciate the style proposed by the Brownsville artist in this tape.

Even the rapping doesn't replicate the satisfying one of the debut, Killah Priest sounds inspired for about ten scattered minutes and delivers half-heartedly the rest of the time and the most attentive will find that the boy has listened to 2Pac's new posthumous album released by Death Row and drew inspiration from some pieces to create his own — the most obvious example is in "My Hood"; but Priest seems to pay homage to Shakur also in "Come Wit Me", with a title that should remind you of the hook of "Hail Mary". The hook of Priest's song is also acted similarly to the hook of "Hail Mary", furthermore, the Brooklyn emcee uses a very laid-back approach to melodic production similar to what Tupac uses for that classic cut — also aware that he's creating a typical "transition album" between his period with the major label and his first steps as an independent artist and without adequate support. Priest brings George Clinton and a couple of friends as guests, playing it safe, and there are backup singers everywhere to further sweeten the sound and give a more attractive appearance to the project by providing an excessive number of rnb hooks.

The album is released in 2001 by Proverbs Music, without promotion and it's a record made by an underground rapper, his first work as an independent and therefore the first in which he can really do and say what he wants, which however still aims to have a mainstream response and tries to hold on to the small niche of fans created in these few years, which is why this is also his most mainstream album and one of his most accessible, at least musically, and it doesn't get a good response in sales.

Overall, this is a step forward and an improvement over "View from Masada", although it's still far from the quality of his debut and it can be said with absolute certainty that this isn't Killah Priest level. The cover is simple: Iron Shiek from Middle East keeps the lightning, already present in his previous album, puts the title in red at the top above his name in yellow at the bottom and without spaces (so "KillahPriest"), his face covers half of the image, while on the other side there are the names of the guests featured on the album. In 2005, this album is reissued by Babygrande Records and the Canibus and Luminati label Mic Club Music, in the period in which Canibus signed with Babygrande and his entire catalog is reissued by the independent label. Ultimately, it's not a good album and with the exception of a few songs it's not an album recommended even for enthusiasts of the artist. 6/10.