Nico the Beast: Dinner is Served (South Philly Hip Hop):
While the Steeler's Super Bowl win over the Cardinals led to Pittsburgh being the focus of the nation's attention the past several days, the Steel City wasn't the only area of Pennsylvania to offer up a solid sixty minutes (give or take) of entertainment last weekend. Just a few hours after the referees gift wrapped and delivered the Lombardi Trophy to the Steelers, South Philly emcee, and longtime supporter of this site, Nico the Beast released his latest solo effort, the free mixtape Dinner is Served. I have to assume that most people were still recovering from a long night of drinking and overeating at the time of its release, as that's the only reason I can come up with to explain why a tape this good has seemingly slipped under the radar of most hip hop blogs.
Chances are that if you're reading this site, you already know what to expect from a Nico album: gritty wordplay, impeccable flow, a couple of introspective joints, a few appearances from Zilla Rocca and an overall air (if I didn't dislike the word so much, I'd be tempted to refer to it as 'swagger') that is unmistakably Philadelphian. Dinner is Served is no exception to this, and it goes a long way toward the foundation of a sound that may, at some point in the future, be used as a reference point for what can be expected from "South Philly rap," if such a regional movement should ever develop the way that it did in North Philly during the late nineties and early aughts.
The mixtape is blessed with submissions from several capable producers, including the previously featured Alex Wood and Nachural, but the tape really develops its uniquely South Philly flavor through the beats of up-and-comers Tecknowledgy and Noochman, who happens to be Nico's little brother. Both Teck and Nooch flip samples from 70's arena rock and rock/disco hybrid records, notably Kansas' Play the Game Tonight and the Bee Gee's Night on Broadway, the kind of records you used to hear the Italian kids blaring out of their rental homes on summer weekends down at the South Jersey shore before bad techno became the area's music of choice (the demographics between South Jersey during the summer months and South Philly during the rest of the year being fairly interchangeable, I suppose that is why I'm so strongly reminded of South Philly when I hear these beats). Most hip hop producers, when they sample the Bee Gees at all, fall back on Stayin' Alive in an attempt to create a club friendly record; Noochman somehow manages to make the Bee Gees sound almost sinister on his version of Broad Street. If one were to remake the soundtrack to that movie about Vince Papale's life with hip hop, I'd expect it to sound a lot like this.
As for the actual rapping, well, after 10 weeks of the Feed the Beast series and his previously released album No Beast So Fierce, I shouldn't have to tell you that Nico comes correct on the mic. I won't waste any further time belaboring that point - there are only so many ways to say that Nico's a dope emcee - so let's keep it moving. Here are three of the best cuts from Dinner is Served:
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