REVIEWSMobb Deep, ‘Black Cocaine EP’

7

• SPIN Rating:7 of 10

• • Listen:

    Spotify

Release Date: November 21, 2011
Label: Infamous/RED

For their first release in five years, New York's signature superthug rap duo — Queensbridge natives Prodigy and Havoc — offer a 20-minute appetizer that's short, sharp, and impressively tart. Freshly freed from incarceration (on a gun-possession charge), Prodigy sounds unusually reflective, at least by his standards. "I did my little bid... my rage is unchanged," he raps on the Nas-assisted "Get It Forever," his anger simmering under bleak gangster-funk loops and a cold-hearted, stentorian flow. He does give out pounds to relative new jacks — "Classic like Biggie, but we fresh like Minaj is," he boasts on the title track (produced by Alchemist). Meanwhile, Havoc promises that he'll "light that motherfucker up like Christmas / And have you leaking that eggnog liquid." Just in time for the holidays.