Written by Atilla Da Hun
on
Nov 28, 2008 at 01:20 PM
ARTIST: The Mob
TITLE: 86th Street b/w The Price Of Our Blood
FORMAT: 12"
YEAR: 1992
LABEL: Sugar Hill Records
From time to time it is a good idea to dig trough your own crates, because sometimes you’ll end up with a record in your hands that have you thinking, uhmmmmm what is this again. I had this experience with the next record I’m about to review. I don’t know when, where our why I bought it, but after I placed the 12 inches of shiny black wax on my turntable and seeing it spinning around at the 33 and something a minute all these years later I was actually pretty surprised what I just found in my own dusty not so old designed by a Scandinavian firma record case. And after I found out the real story behind this record I new I had to write this up because the story is a pretty good one.
Looking at the record label again I can imagine why I bought this one though, what can go wrong with a group called The Mob (Fascinated by the mob since when I was little) that released there record on Sugar Hill Records. Oke it’s from 1992, so not at the height days of the sugar hill popularity but still, where talking about sugar hill records that have some real old school classics under there belt. The Mob exists of 9 Millimeter Mike and Frankie Steel who produced the record themselves. The 12" starts of with 86th Street (Can You Feel It) which is the lead track on this record. (They also shoot a video for it, which I never seen though but more about this later on in the review ) Over a nice mellow jazzy beat - which uses a nice and simple sample of Barry Whites ecstasy years before our favourite take that boy Robbie Williams used it for his (to many sexy ladies in one clip) hit Rock DJ - Frankie and Mike talking about the main drag in Bensonhurst Brooklyn wich was the place to be for the two guys.
As side A is not your typical gangster rap record that you hoped for with a name like The Mob, although they talked about some family connections, food, pretty ladies and so on nobody got shot. So let me welcome you to Side B. “The Price Of Our Blood” starts of with a hilarious skit where special agents Little Dick & Butt Slammer knock on the door of the godfather to ask a few questions. After some screaming guitars the real work begins with 9 Millimeter Mike who starts this vocal mafia voyage.
'Now Millimeter Mike has got you singing the blues / putting suckers in the river with a pair of some cement shoes'
Yeeeeeeeeeeehhhhhhhhhhhhaaaaaaaaaaaa this is what we want to hear from a group called The Mob and after some more bloodshed and lyrical terror it's Frank Steel’s time to step to the mic and wreck this shit up mafia style.
'Now Frankie Steel is your number one gangster / and I personally introduce you to your maker / I got a record for bringing suckers under / so when your punks come / you better come in numbers'
Yeeeeeeeeeeeeehhhhhhhhhhhhhaaaaaaaaaaa again I’m loving this shit, another bunch of rappers who think there gangsters. But hold up wait a minute…………………………….……There’s a little fact that can be told about these two rampaging lunatics they are not your normal studio gangsters. One of the guys, Frankie Steel (Real Name Frank Postillo) worked for the Colombo crime family in New York. When the record came out it reached number 23 on the new release charts, but around that time Frankie Steel was already in jail. When shooting the video for 86th Street the police raided the restaurant where the shot took place and busted Frankie Steel and sentenced him to 13 years of prison for racketeering, loan sharking, gun possession and murder conspiracy.
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