Montréal, Québec, Canada emcee, producer & engineer Mike Shabb returning along with his third studio LP. Arising within the spring of 2018 off his full-length debut Northwave, he would proceed to make his presence identified by placing out 6 EPs & his final couple of mixtapes earlier than gaining notoriety for engineering Boldy James’ fifth album Truthful Change No Theft together with producing “Switches on Every part” off Hitler Wears Hermes X & enlisting his mentor Nicholas Craven to completely produce his fifth EP Shadow Moses from prime to backside. Hood Olympics & Sewaside III have been each stable in their very own rights, following up this spring’s Shabb Van Gogh to Struggle the Energy! forward of Hood Olympics 2.
“Neighborhood Sniper!” opens with a drumless soul pattern speaking about sniping white supremacists whereas “Supercat!” offers his flowers to the dancehall icon of the identical identify. “Ol’ Soiled!” chops up a psychedelic guitar passage speaking about being a totally completely different breed whereas the drumless “Kool G!” villainously discusses catching toe tags with a firearm dropping our bodies 1-by-1.
In the meantime on “World’s Mine!”, now we have Shabbo passionately flexing that he’s been rockin’ mics since he was again in highschool main into the 2-parter “Lord within the Sky! + Nightmares!” speaking about staying the identical even after the money circulate picked up. “Tank!” blends a vocal pattern & hi-hats so he can get in dumpin’ mode past rap simply earlier than “Crickets!” talks about staying within the bushes.
“Gotti!” begins the ultimate leg of Struggle the Energy! with heavier sampling boasting that he’s validated all over the place he goes & bagging himself a stallion whereas “Rock Regular!” that includes 12kgotti finds the pair becoming a member of forces for an ode to the Rock Regular Crew of b-boys. The title monitor talks about seeking to take advantage of out the plans he sticks to & “Terminator X” sends off the album with an instrumental outro.
Evidently that we’re almost certainly gonna have to attend till 2026 for Hood Olympics 2to return, Struggle the Energy! nonetheless presents itself as probably the most militant musical opus of Mike Shabb’s total profession. Cooking up a few of his most artistic batch of drumless beats but, he takes up a very good bulk of the half hour justifying that he’s the highest underdog of this rap shit & he received’t ever kiss ass to be aside of “the trade” since he’s his personal trade.
Rating: 9/10