67 Mob – Back To The Block (Album Review)

The New York-based Italian-American trio fantastically incorporates many sounds from New York’s raw and gritty hip-hop history.

After a decade of being dominated by the Southern states, more specifically Georgia, New York feels like it’s clawing back the claim it used to have on hip-hop’s airwaves. From NY Drill to the insurgence of Jersey Club, artists from the Hip-Hop mecca are finding themselves on people’s party playlists more than ever before.

However, there was a time, from the dawn of Slick Rick in the early 90’s to the Rocafella rule of the 2000’s, where New York was considered the beacon of meaningful, lyrically witty hip hop and not just party music meant for background noise or drunken ears.

67 Mob is a group of three emcees that rewind back to that hard-hitting New York swagger talk that artists like 50 Cent and Killa Cam used to herald back in the day.

The album’s opening track, “Street Swarm” feels like a siren that signals the incoming missile of the album’s gritty, street-tough style. The references to New York’s famous boroughs, The Sopranos and The Godfather, create a vivid image of the New York Italian-American experience: hustling, being streetwise, and having thick skin.

“BGN” is one of the album’s most ambitious and impressive samples. The group samples the iconic Madcon song “Beggin”, and turns it into a hydraulic bouncing, street anthem that offers lyrical content and an upbeat party atmosphere.

“All About Me” is another sample-driven banger that recreates an old Motown sample into a clever Just Blaze-style beat with the rappers themselves using the “Me” part of the sample as part of a simplistic yet catchy chorus that feels nostalgically 2000s.

The album takes an introspective turn with the song “White Gold,” in which the rappers talk about love in the modern world and their own experiences with girls they’re with and girls they’ve let slip by.

The second verse in the song is particularly good as the rapper describes his feelings for a loved one in accordance with the weather and the changing seasons, artistically describing how love often ebbs and flows through the motions just like anything else.

“Ninja” might have the best production on the album, as 67 Mob rap spitfire flows over a Y2K cyber-sounding beat that has the tempo of a Need for Speed car chase. While each rapper rides the beat in their own unique way, for me, the first rapper is the one that perfectly flows over it as if it were made purely for him.

The stunning “Eagle Eyez” is equally a contender for best production as it samples the legendary “One of These Nights” by The Eagles. They sample and loop the first guitar hit and combine it with Hip-Hop drums for a muddy, mixed-down sound that makes it feel even more grimy and cinematic in a New Jack City type of way.

With a wide array of hard-hitting beats and amazing sample uses, Back to the Block is a great modern time capsule of the sound that is essentially New York’s bread and butter, grimy street tales, and speaker-knocking beats.

The album is slightly let down by a few songs that feel like they weren’t quite ready to make it on the album, these being being,“Oh No!”, “Poison String 2”, “DVL IS DPE”.

“DVL IS DPE” attempts to pull off an off-key Westside Gunn type of chorus but ultimately fails to pull it off.

“OH NO!”, has a great beat but a borderline lacklustre performance from the group. The chorus is a little repetitive, which makes the song feel more tedious, and, similarly to “Poison String 2”, the song honestly sounds a little dated.

SCORE/EXCELLENT:

Album Highlights: Eagle Eyez, Streetswarm, White Gold, Ninja, and BGN

Album Lowpoints: Poison String 2, DVL IS DPE, OH NO!

(We rank albums on a scale of: Poor, Mediocre, Good, Excellent, Outstanding).

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