4. Rock Dat Shit

"Put that gun down!" The order was not to be misunderstood, but was a gift certificate, as a bullet without warning usually settled such bills. In this case it would have also settled the beef, or better, the beef had been settled with only one party still being left standing. "Put that gun down, punk!" - "Nah man, I'm not gon' do that, cause I am no punk", the wordy response shot back and crossed paths with the one pistol blast, that was answering it. And the trigger man turned away and left the scene, before the body even touched the ground. He was walking off, walking in company of his shadow, making dark alleys even darker, carrying with him the smell of a just recently shot gun...

A little story to get things rolling. And you probably have enjoyed it, right? Now, this is the type of stories you'll hear on this album, and so this album can be enjoyed too. Leaving the conscious focus behind us, and putting on glasses, that work as an entertainment theater, and at the same time, as magnifying glasses. The scenery we are walking through is Queensbridge, the stomping ground of Prodigy, the ill, in all kinds of senses, half of Mobb Deep. Put your bullet proof vest on, and let be taken on this sight seeing tour.

It takes a while for the album to start, as we go through "Bars & Hooks (Intro)", "Genesis" and "Drive Thru (skit)" first. Despite the second giving us the first words by Prodigy, over a melancholy piano, it's "Rock Dat Shit" that is the first track that is properly credited. And we are listening to a Bink Dogg production, that takes the worst outta synth orchestras. Prodigy rhymes about making sure everyone knows he's not to be messed with, unless you are female, then he's gonna mess with you: "mad cause you know a iller nigga fucking your hun? / handle it / what more can I say / put her on a chain, my duns too beautiful for her to stay away". Teaming up with Noreaga and the Hang Men 3 (as producers), we go through "What U Rep", checking out the previously released, but still due to the Alchemist beat, "Keep It Thoro". P then takes proteges under his wing, with Twin Gambino of the Infamous Mobb rhyming along Chinkey on "Can't Complain", over a string saturated Prodigy beat, that works well for such a thug evening report.

"Infamous Minded" is an updated, remixed, inspired by and flipped rendition of BDP's "Criminal Minded", and it works with straight through rhyming and an interesting beat by Robert 'Shim' Kirkland. The same can be said about Havoc's offering on "Wanna Be Thugs", and The Alchemist comes correct on "Three" too. Cormega lends P a hand, while the latter spits "spilling it on the floor for our dead people, while I spark the sequel / shit, my people got lungs, when we smoke that shit only go around once". The Mobb unites again for "Delt W/ The Bullshit", with Havoc completing the special chemistry with his rhymes and another one of his sinister, haunted and dope beats. But even a thug has "Trials Of Love", where P faces his real life wife B.K. (aka Mz. Bars), allowing a kind of emancipation, as Mz is allowed to talk back. Still, P is the "H.N.I.C.", the head nigga in charge, and the track giving this album its name, was hooked up by EZ Elpee, long time Queens beats provider.

After another skit, The Alchemist is again cooking the meal right with "Veteran's Memorial", a special kind of back in the day track, as P reminisces the comrades that were marching left and right beside him, fighting to grow up. Taking us to "Do It", a weak Rockwilder offering, still has P spit "what you think it's just music / we live this shit / we from the soil, the dirt, the grain, the pain / it still hurts / you can never satisfy my thirst / y'all niggas had best disperse / I charge niggas with intend". We walk pass the acapella rhyming on the "Littles (Skit)", to be quite surprised about the next cut, produced by P himself: "Y.B.E." is on some party tip, with an 80's feel and B.G. of the Cash Money Millionaires dropping by to tell us that he's still all about the green and bling bling. Or more exactly: this track tells Young Black Entrepreneurs to get the dough, but doesn't set guidelines, at what cost. Just Blaze pulls off a crying beat, that is certainly appealing on this Bars & Hooks featured "Diamond". The overrated Rockwilder produced "Gun Play", that is okay, but could never explain the excessive hype surrounding this beatsmith. We rather listen to the last song on here: "You Can Never Feel My Pain", the best track it is too. It finally contains relevant matter, as P talks about his sickle cell, going "you crying cause you grew from the projects / that's not pain, that's emotions, you bitch / I'm talking bout permanent, physical suffering / you know nothing about that / you just complain cause you stress / nigga, my pain's in the flesh / and through the years that pain became my friend / sedated, with morphine as a little kid / I built a tolerance for drugs / addicted to the medicine / now hospital emergency treat me like a fiend". Concluding we say, that this track is showing the person behind the moving pictures, that were just projected before our eyes.

...But if he wouldn't had just turned and left this problem behind, he'd seen the one tear, the last clear liquid abandoning his body, while thousands of blood cells soaked the t-shirt, gave it a darker shade, that even a walking man's shadow couldn't have turned blacker. And in the moment of his death, the moment his soul left the corpse, the body was lifted off a few grams. It hung itself to an oily cloud, approaching the roof of buildings, approaching the saddened sky, and only returning later on, as rain, giving the earth nourishment, that allowed it to hold on, and grow another being from this wasted seed.