By Odeisel

The streets of Anyhood USA are startlingly similar. Arabs, Yemenites or Papi is behind that inch thick bodega plastic selling ditches and four dollar sandwiches. There’s one on every corner but they’re all curiously making money. Single moms yelling at their wild ass quarter water drinking children so they don’t run out into the street and get run over; straining their voice over sirens and the horns of traffic. No matter what hood you reside in, the feel is familiar. Sha Stimuli is intimate with the hood and along with Sheek Louch and Joe Budden, he takes you through the ghetto without riding round on the J. Cardim-produced “Hood 2.”

Jail is no deterrent to criminal activity as empty stomachs do what they do to get full. Those same single parent products get wrapped up in things beyond their understanding because one parent isn’t enough with work and struggle to keep an eye on them all the time.  The video is cathartically framed, featuring bright eyed children, well before the age where the hood takes you under. The gritty surroundings are cloaked in cloudy black and white and evident in the faces of the old heads that have hood struggle chiseled in their visage.

The three MC’s each take a different approach with Sheek making a blunt appeal to hood sensibilities while Sha Stimuli dazzles lyrically with profound observation like “I seen a youngin say he’d rather go to jail than try to go to Yale, and I know just how he feels.” Joe Buddens approach is a bit more emotional, feeling for the people trying to navigate the unforgiving landscape.

Three rappers from three hoods that have survived and persevered the hard times where recession is the norm rather than the exception. There is no dystopia or romanticism, but rather three distinctly clear pictures from credible angles that illuminate the issues that cripple the hood. The video is the icing on the cake. “Hood 2.” Let it take you under.

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