Blood Money

Blood Money provides G-Unit with the opportunity to attach themselves to the legacy of Mobb Deep, and it gives Mobb Deep the chance to connect with a younger set of rap fans. Both groups take full advantage. The G-Unit stamp is all over the album, from the packaging to the mostly self-contained content -- 50 Cent drops in on five tracks, while Young Buck, Tony Yayo, and Lloyd Banks also guest. The album alternately sounds like a proper Mobb Deep album and a Mobb Deep album hosted (and occasionally overrun) by G-Unit, and neither camp is close to operating at full strength. The best example of the alliance's negative effect on the headliners is "Give It to Me," a rote "Candy Shop" knockoff in which Prodigy only fuels the argument that he has slipped as a lyricist: "I'm tired of finger-f*cking this phone/Phone calls bore me, you got me horny." Though Havoc (six tracks), Alchemist ("The Infamous"), and Sha Money XL and Ky Miller ("Put Em in Their Place") come up with some productions worthy of Mobb Deep's old standard, they're easy to lose in multiple stretches of plodding low-wattage tracks. The flashes of brilliance that were once routinely delivered by Havoc and Prodigy are few and fleeting here.