Bonus Blurbs @ Passion of the Weiss: Killer Mike - “I Pledge Allegiance To The Grind II”

Motherfuckers/I just bought some new chukkas/the old ones bloodied up from stomping out all suckas

I was upset when I read that Mike changed his rap name to Mike Bigga; not only is it super-generic sounding, Killer Mike sums the man’s rap persona so well. Unfortunate emcee titles aside, I Pledge Allegiance To The Grind II is one of my favourite albums of the decade. It demands your attention. I wrote a short piece on IPATTGII over at Passion of the Weiss. Click the excerpt below to read the whole thing.

Channeling Tony Robbins on the intro, Mike explains that the album is meant to soundtrack your success. He’s less interested in telling listeners how much money he has and more about talking about how to get that Yet hustling is only one facet of the grind and Mike wears many masks over the album’s 17 tracks: motivational speaker, preacher, and yes, hustler. But like his personal hero (early) Ice Cube (who appears on the polemic “Pressure”), Mike embodies all of these characters without being contradictory.

I also recently penned a Popscene feature on Blur’s self-titled 1997 album. Read it whenever you feel heavy metal.