New Release Tuesday

Got a few undeground favorites to choose from today as both Jedi Mind Tricks and Statik Selektah have new projects out. For long-time Jedi Mind fans, their latest offering, Violence Begets Violence, may sound a little off as Stoupe is no longer a part of the group and handles none of the production duties.

Stoupe as certainly crafted a signature sound for Vinnie Paz and Jus Allah to rhyme over, so the album may suffer without him on the boards, but I'm sure there will still be enough grimy, hard hitting street shit for Jedi Mind fans to embrace. For those of you unfamiliar with Jedi Mind's music, you may enjoy this based strictly on the strength of Vinnie Paz and Jus' lyrics.

In terms of guest spots, there are some old '90's favorites like Pace Won and Young Zee as well as Chip-Fu, while the group also taps Blacastan, Demoz and King Magnetic to trade vocals with. I heard the first single, "When Crows Descend Upon You," and it definitely has that in your face Jedi Mind feel to it. Also peep the video, as it's some pretty violent shit.

As for Statik Selektah, he drops his new disc, Population Control, today. At 19 tracks long, there's sure to be some filler, as there always is with compilation albums (I can already pick a few just looking at the tracklist). But Statik did tap some great MCs for the project such as Sean Price, Termanology, Big K.R.I.T., Freddie Gibbs, Styles P., Saigon, XV, Jon Connor, Bun B, Action Bronson, Talib Kweli, Lil Fame, Reks, Skyzoo, Joell Ortiz and Brother Ali. And on the strength of that lineup alone I'd encourage buying this disc. Not to mention it's all Statik production which is always consistently good if nothing else.