Mobb Deep

It's only May, but Mobb Deep is already looking tough to top in the race for Most Quotable Hip-Hop Line of 2006. Over the heavenly choirs of "Pearly Gates," Prodigy dismisses "religious bullshit" and threatens to beat "that nigga Jesus...for leavin' us in poverty and not watchin' over me." But the saddest thing about the Queensbridge duo's seventh album is that such a cheap piece of sacrilege is the only thing that could make anyone care about this mess. That is, unless the idea of an average G-Unit album with one marginally better rapper sounds intriguing. It's hard to remember when Prodigy and Havoc were hip-hop Scorseses, crafting cinematic views of New York's underbelly. Now they're merely yes-men for 50 Cent. Knee-deep in backstage groupies and bling, Hav and P are reduced to fronting Fiddy leftovers like "Give It to Me," a pathetic rewrite of "Candy Shop" that sounds like the soulless Mobb hit these guys deserve. What's dunn is evidently done, sold out for this worthless Blood Money.