B-Real – Smoke-N-Mirrors

This is a pretty uneven affair. Only traxx u should really be checking for:

Smoke-N-Mirrors
Gangsta Music

—Best track on the album. This Soopafly-produced joint knocks & features a good grown man gangsta verse with B-Real’s trademark tight-chested flow about coming from the streets and making decisions and real-world consequences, his motivations to leave the streets & his inability to completely leave them behind, repping for folks who feel like they have no other choice “Stuck in this poverty there’s gotta be another way out of it / found it in the music in spite of the people who doubted it / couldn’t pull away so easy, separation is ugly / how could i pull away, just knowin that the streets still love me / but the love can be so deadly, we ain’t talkin romance / sometimes the streets they need a sacrifice, we takin’ a chance / it doesn’t matter where you’re livin, every ghetto the same / the only thing that’s different all these people’s faces and names / if i pray to god to give me strength to battle the devil / maybe id hit another level so i could hoist up my metal (medal?)”
Don’t Ya Dare Laugh
—I don’t know what to say about this. I shouldnt like it but what the fuck. Xzibit kills it too. Young De is generic as fukk though, whats up with that?
Everything You Want
Psycho Realm Revolution
Fire

—Real single material with this joint, trading verses with Damian Marley about smoking pot which really what else can u ask for from B-Real
10 steps behind
Stackn Paper
1 Life

The last tracks on the album are kinda ehhhh, like listening to B-Real I want to like this shit but … its so not-quite-good-enough. Like, a posse cut with Too $hort & Kurupt should feel bigger than “When We’re Fucking.” Real underwhelming.

Really I just wanted an excuse to post this classic ’01 Cypress Hill single:

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