Review Summary: Excessive Force is an underground East Coast mixtape with great production and violent lyrics. It is full of good songs, but the album rating is diminished due to the repetitiveness of style - East coast instrumentals and violent lyrics.
The Beatdealaz, composed of producer-rappers Killa and Stevie B, was established in 1998 (as you can see on the mixtape cover) in Virginia. Little-known and little-heard, The Beatdealaz present mixtape “Excessive Force” and attempt to blow you out of the water with their aggressive east coast style.
All the songs on the mixtape are good and you should be able to listen to any individual track without wanting to skip it or grimacing. Two perfect examples of this are God of War and ‘Check Ya Ego. The Beatdealaz skip the intro and start out with a monstrosity of a song - ‘God of War’. The first you thing is a narrator stating “Due to some violent content viewer discretion is advised.” Then you hear a drill sergeant barking out orders to troops. After that, you hear a beastly beat with droaning voices and the occasional gunfire sample laid over a top-tier east coast instrumental. Killa and Stevie B both brutally murder this track, and – their lyrics suggest – is probably exactly what they were going for. This track sets the standard for the entire mixtape, and is a sign of things to come. Check Ya Ego is a good song with clever production featuring an X-Files sample. It is also one of their better songs in terms of lyricism (even though the common suffix in the rhyme scheme certainly helps): “They just full of hot air nowadays/Always screamin bout how they runnin thangs/You don’t run a thang, tangle with my team feel the pain/Say my name in vain/Terror I will reign/Your neck I will strain/Cut circulation to your brain…”The clever production paired with good verses and a catchy hook makes Check Ya Ego a posterchild for deep underground east coast rap.
The production practically makes the album. It sports a good choice of samples, such as the X-Files sample and the drill sergeant sample. Combine it with good, solid East coast instrumentals and the production easily gets a B+, if nothing higher. The Beatdealaz, being composed of the two above-mentioned producer-rappers Stevie B and Killa, would definitely not be able to function as well in the rap game if not for their skills on the tables. Their lyrics are at best strictly violent, predictable, and at times sporting good punchlines; at worst, predictable and aggressive. While their flows and voices are at best above average-to-good and at worst poor-to-average. I’m not trying to say they’re bad rappers, because they are far from that. But, the producers that would be willing to collaborate with them wouldn’t be top-tier because they aren’t phenom MCs. Balanced producer-rappers are hard to come by nowadays, and Stevie B and Killa both deserve major props for being quite talented in both regions (especially production) and being self sufficient.
Sure, the entire mixtape is composed of good songs, but it is not easy to gloss over the fact that it gets repetitive. Yes, The Beatdealaz developed a quite successful formula: East coast beat + violent lyrics + aggressive delivery + mid-tempo flow = good song. But, after awhile it gets repetitive and boring. However, if you like gangsta, east coast rap this mixtape could be for you. If it weren’t so repetitive, it could easily be a 3.5 or 4. It’s definitely worth a listen. Check it out at DatPiff.
