6

6.0

UK release date 12.07.2007

Big City are Beatnuts’ Psycho Les and Al Tariq, here teamed up with Problemz of Missin Linx. The hard-snapping drums, cheerily threatening riffs and rough party rhymes are all unmistakably Beatnuts, and the preoccupations of weed, women and the occasional indulgence in good-natured ultra-violence are all to the fore, just as you’d expect.

Problemz fits right into the modus operandi with some witty similes, getting things “bouncing like boxsprings in Amsterdam”, and Greg Nice turns up at one point to deliver his off-the-shelf hook-shouting. It’s all pretty much business as usual, and when one reflects that it has been more than a decade since the Beatnuts template was perfected, one might be forgiven for finding proceedings a bit tired and uninspired. Will the Beatnuts ever grow up? Will they ever discuss anything more scintillating than cash, booty and getting blunted? “Running Around” has a half-hearted go at social commentary and the dangers of a life of crime, but the rather ambiguous conclusion is that such behaviour would be best solved with a 45. “However It Go” happily considers the necessity of “singing like 50” if that’s what it takes to get the loot, “Lick B*lls” takes a dodgy shot at the chopped and screwed formula, and so it rather predictably goes.

A fair bit of laurel-resting, then, but what else is a trio of dough-loving straight Gs to do?
Words Ewan Hurzami