This week’s mixtape up for review, DJ Scarface’s “I Got That Product”

After a week off, the official musichelpweb.com blog is back with the third edition of Mixtape Monday. I hope you all enjoyed your week off, but now it’s back to business as usual. This week’s mixtape comes from DJ Scarface and it’s called “I Got That Product”. The mixtape features a spectrum of rappers from the mixtape standard (Stack Bundles), to the securely mainstream (Mobb Deep), and a lot of what’s in between.

The first thing that caught my attention on this mixtape was a track called “If it’s on”. The track featured Dipset member J.R. Writer and two females, Lady Luck and Babs. I was shocked when I heard the song’s first verse from Babs. Babs, no if’s and’s or but’s about it, killed it. If you take a short stroll down memory lane you might remember Babs was the top female rapper to come out of the P. Diddy catastrophe known as “The Band”. Babs referenced her stint with the group and an infamous experience she and her “Band”-mates went through on the show “Making the Band 2”; “From the same label as Mase/ Don’t get it twisted, the heat put a bitch in her place/ …but I never wear lace/ plus I walk over bitches in the game like I walk for cheesecake”.

Dipset artists have been known to rap on some beats with unexpected samples. Whether it be Cam’ron rapping to Billy Joel or Jim Jones riding a beat courtesy of Sting, these guys never cease to shock you every once and a while. This mixtape was no exception, as J.R. Writer continues this time-honored tradition with the song “New Kid in Town”, sampled from an Eagles song of the same name. The vocals aren’t incredible, but combined with the beat the song is very entertaining.

The mixtape also gave a little love to a couple of old timers, Royal Flush and AZ. Royal Flush has two songs on the Mixtape, the best of which is “In these Streets”. In one stellar verse, Royal Flush spits the following: “You ain’t ready for the street life homey/ Got this gun up on me/ And I’m gonna treat you like Sosa did Tony/ I’m the hottest shit out like PSP for Sony/ And I’m like T.I. ‘cause you really don’t know me.” AZ gets on an Alchemist produced track called “Professional Style”. The song is raw and running a shade under two minutes I was left wanting more from the Brooklyn born rap veteran.

The rest of the highlights of the mixtape:
– Method Man brought some of his usual ridiculously engaging lyrics with the song “Who I’m Is” (English teachers all over the world cringe upon hearing the song’s title)
– Mobb Deep and fellow G-Unit member 50 Cent talk about the girls who try harder to get backstage at their concert “then the politicians on the campaign” on the song “Backstage Pass”.
– 50 cent also gets on a track with Lloyd Banks on the curiously catchy song “Cake”.
– Killa Sha does a great job rapping on the “Pearly Gates” beat with a freestyle called “Pull Da Wool”

Overall, the mixtape will have you skipping just as many tracks as you will listen to. However, there is some interesting stuff here and the mixtape maintains as listenable from start to end.

OVERALL SCORE: 6.5 out of 10