http://www.hotnewhiphop.com/mobb-squad-the-allegory-vol-1-mixtape.32203.html
Have you ever gone to see a movie based on the trailers being pretty dope? Then, to boost, one of your friends tells you the movie is one of the best movies you’ll see all year. You see it…and it doesn’t really move you at all? Well, that’s kind of how I felt after listening to this mixtape. Let me explain.
Shortly after I decided to start doing these reviews I received a link to this mixtape along with a tweet saying, “Just listen and expend your mind.” Now, I’m not sure if this person meant “expand your mind” or if he truly meant “expend.” Either way, by the time I was done with this, I definitely didn’t feel my mind was expanded at all, but, goddamn, it was definitely expended. Now, let me explain the problem with prefacing a musical suggestion with something like “expend/expand your mind.” Sending something that pretentious to a pretentious person is a really bad idea. That’s like saying you can out-douche Pauly D. That being said, I really thought that maybe this was going to be a dope mixtape, because I’m thinking “these guys would never send an asshole like me something sub-par along with a message suggesting how it’s going to (positively) alter my mind.” I was wrong. Let’s get into the music.
I’m really not sure what these guys are going for. I thought maybe they were trying to be some kind of Anticon style hip hop because of the way the MCs were rhyming, but then I got the impression that maybe they were going for that harder old school Jedi Mind Tricks style hip hop. Then when I heard the following line I became really confused. “In conclusion our squad will never be fake. Real conscious rap, you think else you’ll be mistake…en.” Not confused because the line was bad. More so confused because I heard absolutely nothing conscious on this whole mixtape. Were they being tongue-in-cheek? Do they really think lines like “Fuck ham, I’m going fatback. Faggots is ass crack.” are conscious? Maybe it’s just a joke that I’m not privy to. Shrug. Moving on.
Well, the production really wasn’t too bad. It was made up of kind of darker, slightly experimental beats that I could fuck with. The quality was a little poor. The vocals sounded like they were recorded in the closet of an old wooden house with big roaches. However, the issue for me was really the MCs. One guy I felt had a bit of potential (Highlander). He kind of sounded like a not-as-good version of Cage circa 2000. The other guy, on the other hand, was the problem. I’m sorry, but he was just plain terrible. I never caught his name, but if you listen to this you’ll know exactly who I’m talking about. I don’t seem to hear him as much on the later half of the record so either he quit or got kicked out. Either way, it was no love lost.
I think this mixtape may have material going from older to newer. The reason I think that is because the music at the beginning is really bad, but around track 12 it gets much better…although, still not quite good. Modern Day Love Story got my attention back, but not enough to outweigh the badness of the first half. Overall, I think this mixtape suffers from cool ideas, but poor execution. In my opinion Highlander has a decent flow (towards the end), but needs to work on his lyrics. The other guy should just work on doing something else altogether. His lyrics and his flow were just not there. Not trying to be a dick. Just telling the truth…as I hope you guys would expect from me by now.
If the guys in Mobb Squad are reading this and my suspicions are correct about this being old, please shoot me some new material. I’m curious to see if you solidified your sound and what that sound ended up being.
Hey Myke,
this is Highlander. The one member that you were saying that was god awful WAS kicked out recently and saw that you were reviewing mixtapes and decided to send you the link, knowing well and good that it wasn’t our best effort, out of spite. We would never say anything as pretentious and arrogant as that. It could only incriminate you and no music can live up to that hype. He (His name is Clinic by the way) knew it was bad and we are embarrassed by it so he sent it to you. He is still our “friend” and thought it would be funny to put it up for review, since he knew our twitter info. He’s fucking awesome and not immature at all (He does fuck with DEHH, though). I know it sounds like a cop out to say that, but its the reason why you reviewed it. Its not so much a rebuttal as it is an apology haha Needless to say, The Allegory was a learning experience. We didn’t really know what we wanted to sound like and we had to stumble across it somehow. Last October we finished a mixtape called War of The Worlds that extensively samples the radio broadcast from the 20’s and that is more along the lines of what we are trying to sound like. I don’t talk about aliens and shit on it, but it’s basically my mind attacking itself and at war with itself the whole album. So we’re sorry that you had to listen to this hodgepodge of confused personalities clashing trying to converge as one.We aren’t even Mobb Squad anymore. We’re Unknown Persons. Mobb Squad sounded a little too much like Brick Squad and for obvious reasons, we didn’t want the first thing you thought of when you was Waka Flocka. But thanks for reviewing this piece of shit that we threw together like 2 years ago haha its much appreciated
Wow. So this guy sent the tape in to embarrass you guys as well as waste my fucking time? He may be your “friend” but he sounds like a douche. At any rate, just about everything you sent me I predicted. I figured it was old material and I kinda knew Clinic was gone. I just hope, for his sake, he’s not rapping anymore because he raps about as well as I would be in an eating contest sponsored by The Klan. Well, whatever. Good luck with the new stuff. If you wanna send it over when it’s done I’d be interested in checking it out. Later.
Are you buying all of that Myke? They kicked him out recently but are still friends and as friends he thought it would be cool to send a terrible mixtape with a pretentious line from a group that he is no longer a member of but friends with only to be an awesome, non immature guy that fucks with DEHH which is why you reviewed it? HYFR [Drake song]
Disclaimer: the long, run on sentence was intentional
I think he was being sarcastic with him still being their “friend” and with him being an “awesome and non-immature guy.” Either way…I don’t know if he’s telling the truth or not. I don’t much care. I’m just aggravated that I wasted my time listening to this shit.