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(More customer reviews)Souls of Mischief have just released their first album in over 9 years entitled "Montezuma's Revenge." The album was produced by the legendary Prince Paul behind hip-hop classics from De La Soul, Gravediggaz, Stetsasonic and Handsome Boy Modelling School. Souls of Mischief stormed onto the rap scene when they were just 17 years old releasing hip-hop classics like 93 til infinity. That track is still much loved and their first album is considered one of the best hip-hop albums ever released. They followed it up with the much maligned "No Man's Land." This album remains one of the most underrated rap albums ever released. The sound was in stark contrast to their first album but the lyrics and flows were still unparalleled for the time. Souls of Mischief were always way ahead of their time. They were dropping cadences, styles and multi-syllabic flows that the rap industry is just catching on to now almost 15 years later. Their third album "Trilogy" was in much the same vein as their first 2, sticking to the tried and true formula of ridiculous lyrics over crazy beats.
Montezuma's Revenge is a new era for the Souls. They are all older, a bit more mature, and yet with this album they've retained that timeless `93 style hip-hop sound. Much credit has to go to Prince Paul for getting the very best out of Souls. Prince Paul knows how to make an album. In this age of Itunes and people only downloading tracks they like, "the album" is almost dead. Prince Paul has created something that is complete and is best consumed as such. The entire album flows from beginning to end and it covers so many styles.
I don't think you will ever find a better rap group than Souls of Mischief. They are a unified force, they come together as one and smack you over the head with those ridiculous flows and lyrical gymnastics. It is not simply a track with 4 rappers each dropping a verse. They combine together as duos or together as a foursome like in "Fourmation" dropping one line each. They follow on from each others rhymes, they drop in and out like tag team specialists.
What is special about this album is that it isn't just the tried and true hiero formula of non stop battle lyrics. They have created great songs here. "For Real Y'all" is just a driving bassline with Opio hitting the chorus over and over again. It just bumps. The hooks are also back on track. On Trilogy they become unnecessarily long and unwieldy. Things are kept simple here, Prince Paul using samples in "La La" or a simple "Tour stories, true stories" in Tour Stories. It often work's best and its why 93 til infinity still sounds good today. Think of "Never No More" as the blueprint. The topics are still varied from crazy women in "Postal," leaving women in "Lickety Split," and storytelling tracks like "You got it" and "Dead Man Walking." This combined with the signature hiero bangers like "Hiero HQ," "One," and "Poets." It's finished off withe summer BBQ track "Home Game," which really deserves a single and a music video to be released in summer 2010. That would surely help blow up the album. The track has a great feel reminiscent of other hiero hits like "You Never Knew" and "93 til Infinity."
I think what Souls of Mischief does is create albums that you can listen to over and over again. Don't listen to some reviewer who's played it a couple of times amongst 20 albums he is reviewing and given it 3 and a half stars. This album is a classic that you can listen to over and over again and till you can recite every verse. The beats are incredible, the flows and rhymes on point and the vibe an era of hip-hop in 93/94 that has never been matched. Prince Paul has always got the sound of the tracks right. Everything is not crisp and clear, he's intentionally made it sound like something from the early 90s.
Take "Proper Aim." Surely one of the greatest Souls of Mischief's tracks ever. A thick double bass line comes roaring in. Vinyl crackles, kicks and snares and the Souls hit you with that trademark flow. It really gets no better and is a great example of the quality of the album.
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Montezuma's Revenge was created the old-fashioned way, withthe MCs A-Plus, Phesto, Opio & Tajai - and producers PrincePaul & Domino - in the lab together from the beginning to theend of the recording process. "We rented a house" explainsOpio. "Prince Paul came out, we had no distractions, we just didmusic every day. " "It was cool" adds Tajai. "He had concepts, andits good to have an outside perspective - it was a great process."The result is a cohesive, creative Hip Hop album, the kind ofproject you d expect from veterans like Souls of Mischiefunder the auspices of a genius producer like Prince Paul.Souls first encountered Prince Paul while touring with A TribeCalled Quest and De La Soul back in the day. But it was on amore recent tour with Handsome Boy Modeling School thatthe seeds of this collaboration were planted.So what exactly is Montezuma's Revenge? Tajai comments,"We recorded the album on Montezuma Street." The finalproduct features 18 tracks of the quality Hip Hop you ve come to expect from Hieroglyphics, with cover art byesteemed illustrator Steve Lopez (famous for hisillustrations of Erykah Badu and others). Of coursethere s more to the title than the location of therecording, Tajai says "The deeper meaning is this albumwill make you cr@p yourself."
