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I felt like they were on a steady road upward from To The Death to Warriorz.
Warriorz reminded me the most of all the albums prior to it: The epic Premier intro ("We do not apologize to you fake ass niggas...because you are not important to us") had some of the illest self-produced M.O.P. joints in "G Building" (LOL @ Fizzy building a beat around use of the "Nigga" from that Sly Stone record), "Calm Down" and "Cold As Ice", classics in "Ante Up (bringing back DR Period)", a grip of ill joints from Premier (including one of his GOAT -- that's right, GOAT in "Face Off 2K1"), and all with limited features, it just felt like the ultimate M.O.P. album at the time.
Firing Squad hit me right in the chest when I first heard it. That title track, with Teflon (one of my favorite rappers for real), "Salute", "Stick To Ya Gunz", "New Jack City"... I even remember where I was living down south, cats (chicks even) liked "Dead and Gone". Like people actually talking about M.O.P. like that? I didn't think people liked 'em that much back then, LOL.
I think I go back and forth with those two.
I liked "First Family" because it had one of my favorite (and most hilarious) M.O.P. tracks in "Breakin' The Rules". I think that was the debut of the "goofy" M.O.P. track (other tracks in that vein: "Niggotiate", "Stop Pushin", "It's That Simple" (original version), etc.)... lots of other great tracks on that album, classics even, but a lot of Firing Squad's shit hit harder.
And truth be told, some of the shit on Foundation is some of my favorite M.O.P. tracks ever. (aforementioned "Stop Pushin", "What I Wanna Be", "Blow The Horns" (that Volvo shit), "Rude Bastard" (no controversy yo), "Crazy")
but Warriorz just seemed to be the culmination of everything they had done to that point.
Shit with Rocafella fell short (I was actually amped to hear what that would have been, since that was early '00s), and they had trouble cobbling together a focused project like that ever since.
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