Let’s get it out of the way: Prodigy never recovered from The Takeover. Ever since Jay put him up on that summer jam screen, P’s once agile flow has slowed down into Snoop Dogg territory. Worse yet, after Mobb Deep’s embarrassing G-Unit album, it seemed that the once feared duo was totally lost in […]

Hip-hop history is littered with middling records made by teenagers. For every Shyheim, there’s a Kriss Kross, a Bow Wow and a Lil Romeo. Even good adolescent rappers like Illegal and Da Youngstas rarely got much further than a few strong early singles. Needless to say, a pair of dirt-poor 16-year olds from hip-hop backwater […]

Tha Liks’ didn’t look to Jimi Hendrix for sonic suggestions, but for chemical inspiration. Not the acid in the headband Hendrix, but the so drunk-he-choked-on-his own-vomit Jimi–except J-Ro, Tash, and E-Swift held their liquor far better. Had they gone the other route, gobbled acid, and sampled psychedelic guitar solos, they would’ve inevitably been critics darlings–or […]