REVIEW: Jedi Mind Tricks
‘Violence Begets Violence’
Originally published in the Boston Phoenix (November 2011)
It’s a daily struggle to avoid murdering Drake fans who bump that trash on the train in front of me, cliché Auto-Tune hooks leaking from their Skull Candy and polluting my perimeter. But thanks to the new Jedi Mind Tricks album, I’m finally building up enough courage to shove a tone-deaf shitbag on the tracks.
True to its title, Violence Begets Violence is the Philly powerhouse’s most aggressive effort yet, a morally polluted playground that no sane unarmed person should dare to frolic in. Jedi Mind’s enduring longevity can be attributed to Vinnie Paz and Jus Allah’s commitment to unrelenting bloodshed, not to mention their reluctance to mellow with age. Although they’ve matured as MCs, Jedi Mind is more or less a side project at this point, a dark and homicidal hellscape in which the pair can narrate their nastiest nightmares. Of course Jus and Vinnie need the right doom symphonies to mash on, and for Begets they had to find them outside the camp since Jedi Mind producer Stoupe sat this round out. It’s all good though — as the most valuable underground rap producer of all-time, Stoupe has inspired legions of similarly spirited sons.
Rising to the occasion, Massachusetts track architect C-Lance comes through the hardest, crushing four cuts, including “Willing a Destruction onto Humanity,” a Stoupe tribute if there ever was one, complete with twisted Latin angels in the background. Other standouts come from Hypnotist on “Target Practice,” and Mr. Green, whose cherubic “Design in Malice” with Pace Won and Young Zee “puts pressure on you kids just like a soccer mom.” If you’re looking for new tricks from Jedi Mind, look elsewhere.
But for a full-force pillage and reminders that Rick Ross and Barack Obama are both complete frauds, Jus and Vinnie deliver once again.
