Montréal, Québec, Canada emcee, producer & engineer Mike Shabb returning along with his third studio LP. Coming up within the spring of 2018 off his full-length debut Northwave, he would proceed to make his presence identified by placing out 6 EPs & his final couple of mixtapes earlier than gaining notoriety for engineering Boldy James’ fifth album Fair Exchange No Robbery together with producing “Switches on Everything” off Hitler Wears Hermes X & enlisting his mentor Nicholas Craven to totally produce his fifth EP Shadow Moses from high to backside. Hood Olympics & Sewaside III had been each stable in their very own rights, following up this spring’s Shabb Van Gogh to Fight the Power! forward of Hood Olympics 2.
“Neighborhood Sniper!” opens with a drumless soul pattern speaking about sniping white supremacists whereas “Supercat!” offers his flowers to the dancehall icon of the identical identify. “Ol’ Dirty!” chops up a psychedelic guitar passage speaking about being a totally completely different breed whereas the drumless “Kool G!” villainously discusses catching toe tags with a firearm dropping our bodies 1-by-1.
Meanwhile on “World’s Mine!”, now we have Shabbo passionately flexing that he’s been rockin’ mics since he was again in highschool main into the 2-parter “Lord in the Sky! + Nightmares!” speaking about staying the identical even after the money move picked up. “Tank!” blends a vocal pattern & hi-hats so he can get in dumpin’ mode past rap simply earlier than “Crickets!” talks about staying within the bushes.
“Gotti!” begins the ultimate leg of Fight the Power! with heavier sampling boasting that he’s validated in all places he goes & bagging himself a stallion whereas “Rock Steady!” that includes 12kgotti finds the pair becoming a member of forces for an ode to the Rock Steady Crew of b-boys. The title monitor talks about trying to take advantage of out the plans he sticks to & “Terminator X” sends off the album with an instrumental outro.
Needless to say that we’re most probably gonna have to attend till 2026 for Hood Olympics 2to return, Fight the Power! nonetheless presents itself as essentially the most militant musical opus of Mike Shabb’s complete profession. Cooking up a few of his most artistic batch of drumless beats but, he takes up a superb bulk of the half hour justifying that he’s the highest underdog of this rap shit & he gained’t ever kiss ass to be aside of “the industry” since he’s his personal business.
Score: 9/10