MOP — Warriorz

Fourth studio album by MOP, Brownsville hip-hop duo consisting of Eric "Billy Danze" Murray and Jamal "Lil Fame" Grinnage. Production is mainly done by DJ Premier and Fizzy Womack aka Lil Fame, DR Period, Mahogany, MOP, Laze E Laze, Nottz, Chris Coker and Curt Cazal are also credited. Among the few guests featured on this record, The Product G&B provides a hook, Funkmaster Flex an intro, and the only accredited rappers are Tephlon and Lord Have Mercy, both of Brooklyn.

The intro is accomplished by a brilliant dark beat by DJ Premier: dark samples, pounding drum machine, hard, dark and midtempo, then the second part of the intro boasts an energetic boom bap with the producer scratching some lines of the duo taken from the tracks you'll hear on this album. Fizzy Womack produces the following track, "Welcome to Brownsville", brilliant boom bap, splendid sample, eclectic piano, dirty and dusty slow drum and great hardcore and flowing energetic delivery of the duo, together with Tephlon, first guest of the edition. The Product G&B delivers a rnb-pop hook in third choice, a song meant to be something of a crossover, which MOP rips with a powerful hardcore rapping style on a fresh Premier boom bap.

Funkmaster Flex is the third consecutive guest and the last one, before a dry desert on the tracklist: sample from "Soul Sister, Brown Sugar" by Sam & Dave with tense synth, energetic boom bap more powerful than ever made by DR Period, hard and ultra-pounding drum machine, heavy intro from Flex, then Lil Fame and Billy Danze bring to life one of the most ignorant rap songs in history, performing with a super-ultra-aggressive hardcore delivery, dope; perfect hook, with three short stanzas each, Coppertop City duo make a perfect killer cut among their best ever. "Face Off" opens a long section of the album with no guests: Preemo's boom jazzy hardcore bap, midtempo and pounding drum, great sample, energetic hardcore slow delivery of the two MCs; the beat stops mid-track and an accessible jazzy boom bap is born with lighter-than-usual samples, Fame and Billy Danze deliver with a lively and flowing style.

Beatmaker Mahogany delivers the soundscape for the next track, with a female chipmunk soul sample over hardcore jazzy rhythm, regular and hard drum, MOP is still inspired and doesn't miss a thing with lively hardcore rapping. The group keeps things on track by realizing the beat of "G-Building", hardcore production with slow, pounding and dirty drum machine, and lively hardcore rapping. In the track number eight, the producer changes for the fifth time in a row, showing good dynamism behind the keyboards and surprising sonic coherence: Laze E Laze provides another hardcore beat, with a perhaps less good sample than usual and a pounding, hard and dusty drum, but the quality doesn't seem to drop, because the two Brownsville rappers also kill this cut.

Back to show the typical brush stroke of the producer of Gang Starr in "On the Front Line": hardcore and dark jazzy boom bap music carpet, close to noir, but not completely noir, it seems to have mafia sound traits, boasting excellent layered samples and a hard, slow and pounding drum machine, MOP eats the song, delivering another classic with an energetic and smooth style. Excellent scratched outro. Fizzy Womack goes back behind the keyboards half an hour after the last time, offering good horns for the background of the tenth song, where the group boasts a more youthful and lively style. In "Follow Instructions" the genius of DJ Premier returns: perfect sample from "Just Memories" by Eddie Kendricks, perfect entry of MOP. Excellent and extraordinary boom bap, fantastic samples, hard and pounding drum machine, perfect, wonderfully lively, energetic, hardcore and smoothness delivery of the duo. It's one of the best cuts in the duo's career, closed by an outro with a change of beat.

It opens a section of very strong cuts and is followed by another classic, "Calm Down". The production is done by Fizzy Womack, Lil Fame has done so much well on this whole LP, that this rhythm feels like another consecutive Premier work: classic sample from Nona Hendryx's "Design for Living", tense synths, lively energetic youthful intro, then boom bap with minimal, skeletal and tight drum, female soul sample looped in the background, the duo delivers with an energetic and flowing style and kills the track. Grover Washington Jr's "Lover Man" is the sample that opens "Power", jazzy hardcore soundscape with taut horn samples, simple hook, slow and hard drum, brutally hardcore MOP rapping over a great Fizzy Womack beat.

Nottz is the author of the production on "Home Sweet Home", boom bap jazzy, simple tight looped sample, hard, slow and tearing drum, Fame and Danzini deliver their thug bars with a smooth hardcore style together with Lord Have Mercy, in a kind of homage to Brooklyn. "Background Niggaz" boasts an annoying and squeaky g-funk synth in the background and a regular, pounding hard drum to compose a hard-funky beat made by DR Period, on which the MOP is still fit. The track throws the baddest, toughest and most powerful duo in rap to another classic, "Cold as Ice". It inevitably looks like a Premier, I think it's a Premier, and instead it's a brilliantly crafted production by Lil Fame: intro with synth stretched to support a fantastic, perfect sample from the homonymous rock hit by Foreigner. Intro of the MOP along with the sample, left to breathe at the beginning, slow, hard and pounding drum, powerful, energetic, heavy and hard hardcore delivery of the MOP, which dismember the cut. Despite an unlikely amount of curse words, the [censored] choice gets radio airplay.

Beatmaker Chris Coker sets the beat for "Operation Lockdown": boom bap hardcore left to breathe, hard hammering and heavy drum, easy sample, few electric piano keys sampled in background that penetrate your brain, smooth juvenile hardcore delivery of MOP. The sixth and final beat produced by DJ Premier on this record comes is present in "Roll Call": hardcore production, tight and hard drum machine, good jazzy sample, the duo provides a inspired hardcore delivery. After killing everything that was possible to eliminate, Lil Fame and Billy Danze put their Hattori Hanzō back in their sword sheaths, and offer the personal "Foundation", choice who represents again the pinnacle of their career, on a hardcore production.

Lyrically, MOP shines in his boundless violence with chilling, harsh, thug, braggadocio bars, representing Brownsville to the fullest. The production is extraordinary, DJ Premier produces a third of the album, Lil Fame produces another third, and the remaining rhythms are supplied by different beatmakers: Gang Starr's producer is as awesome as ever, while Lil Fame raises his bar and scores a series of beats wonderfully on par with Preemo. Even more memorably, none of the other producers make mistakes, with DR Period taking the liberty of putting his signature on one of the many masterpiece cuts featured in this gem-album. To distinguish the two Brownsville MCs from the rest of the circuit, there's the execution of these texts: they scream more than ever, they perform their stanzas with an ultra-aggressive style, spitting out absurd and violent threats on overwhelming rhythms, it's fantastic. Their execution is crazy, unmatched in intensity and energy, deeply flowing despite a very raw, very rough, very tight, devastating, destructive, unattainable rapping style. These guys manage to turn anything offered to them into hardcore, even ballads, in a verbal siege lasting over 73 minutes that never seems to end: the record is very long, only the best listeners arrive exhausted to the end, the others DIE EARLIER.

Released by Loud Records, the album gets a positive reception from critics and is a notable commercial success, peaking #25 on the Billboard 200, #5 on rap chart, #2 on independent records. Powerful and heavy document, it's one of the most ignorant, funny and violent works in hip-hop, a practically classic killer-album and one of the best hardcore gangsta rap CDs ever made. Maybe, just maybe, rap album of the year. But here's your pillow and your chamomile, now you can sleep on this masterpiece like the rest of the world that isn't called Steve Juon.

Rating: 9/10.