Review Summary: Are you in the mood for a mixtape full of violent threats and street anthems staright out of Yonkers, New York ? No ? Well if you were you'd surely want to listen to this.
The LOX, yet another group signed to Bad Boy Records by Sean "Diddy" Combs, is a rap group composed of three rappers all coming from Yonkers, New York, Jadakiss, Styles P and Sheek Louch. each have had a consequent solo career, with more or less success, but it all started off from this group, the LOX. But the group has so far in 16 years of existence only one album under its belt,
Money, Power & Respect in 1998. But that does not mean they haven't been prolific. On the contrary, they have released many underground mixtapes, but no official release due to conflicts with their record company.
It is one of these mixtapes that I am here to review, the 2007 tape called
Living Off Experience, which is what the acronym LOX stands for. This being a mixtape, it has the same flaws most of these have, that is a great disparity between the songs, an overabundance of tracks, and a bunch of remixes, some even using verses from other songs present in this same tape. But thankfully,
Living Off Experience still manages to somehow overcome these flaws, and the result is a pretty good disc to listen to.
This mixtape is for most part a solid collection of grim, rough and pure East Coast hardcore Hip-Hop. Testosterone-driven boast songs, tales about street violence, and death threats compose the entirety of the album, with the exception of maybe a couple of songs also dealing with the pain felt by the hustlers and gangsters living in the streets of New York. The first half of the album is of way better quality than the second, perhaps because it is composed of more songs performed by the entire group, while the rest of the songs only have at most two of the rappers, along with outside guests. With the exception of "Hands Up", the second half is composed of mostly uninteresting songs, which completely fail at maintaining any attention from the listener, which isn't helped by the fact that there are thirty tracks.
This inevitably drags the rating down, but there still are some great songs on here, and if set aside from the rest of the mixtape they would have made a really strong album. The numerous songs warning about not messing with the LOX unless you want to get shot are well executed, and manage along with street anthems such as "Back By Popular Demand" and more emotional tracks such as mixtape highlight "Pain"to show what the group is capable of doing when really concentrated. The rapping is strong throughout the whole mixtape, it is consistent without bringing any outstanding moments, and each rapper manages to bring something interesting to the tape. While Sheek Louch is clearly the weakest member of the group, Jadakiss and Styles P are both technically great, the former with his signature rough voice and the latter with his unique flow.
When seeing my rating of
Living Off Experience, you have to take into account the fact that this is what it is, a mixtape, and that it could easily have scored a 3.5/5 (or higher if you're into this kind of rap), had it been cut down to only take the best songs off this extremely lengthy disc. While
Living Off Experience is catered to a really small public, it is still something quite enjoyable to listen to when you're in a mood for hardcore Hip-hop straight from the streets.
