The Mighty Underdogs are a newly formed trio of hip-hop heavy weights from the West Coast, Blackalicious’ Gift Of Gab, fellow Quannum compatriot Lateef The Truth Speaker and Headnodic, producer from the Bay area. With so many collaborators on this album, DJ Shadow, MF Doom, Mr Lif, Akrobatik, Tash (from The Alkoholiks), Chali 2na (Jurassic 5), Julian & Damian “JR Gong’ Marley, it begs to be the hip-hop super group of this decade, and it pulls it off, with such a pedigree, this dog’ got bite…
The songs are finely crafted, they deserve to make an appearance on radio and MTV usually filled to the brim with half rate commercial tunes. This release has that crossover potential, there’ material on here that will appeal to the younger hip-hop heads, bought up on MTV and ring-tones, yet it retains its edge, with the use of some of the best MC’ in the business and the surprising production prowess of relatively unknown producer Headnodic, who I’m sure we will hear much more of in the future.
Highlights are the brilliant Gunfight, full of bombast guitars, and the crazy genius of an MF Doom verse, Laughing At You, which could’ve been touched by The Neptunes if I didn’ know any better, and the relentless party funk of UFC Remix, with cuts by non other than DJ Shadow.
A fantastic album from start to finish, with plenty of variety for everyone, like Dr Dooom, these guys are also injecting some needed humor into hip-hop, after all, we all want to have a good, fun time.
Wayne Stronell
