Born King aka Killa Fifth - Night Vission (Mad Thinkah Productions)

Born King has dropped albums on Halloween for three years in a row now, from Krad Edis in 2007 to The Secret Order in 2008 to this year's Night Vission, in addition to a couple other albums he's released in the same time frame. He told me that this year's Phat Laces was the last proper Born King album, and Night Vission is his last album under the Killa Fifth alias. I'll believe it when I see it, though, considering how prolific he's been, and hopefully either way he'll keep making music, because he remains as inscrutable and uncompromising as ever, even as his ideas and his message become more focused and articulate with each release. You can download the album here.

Born King aka Killa Fifth - "Mission Statement" (mp3)
I mentioned last year that Born King had a great song on his MySpace page that hadn't been released on any of his many albums, and he finally went and put it on one, which makes me really happy, because this song is really aptly titled and sums up BK's whole approach and philosophy really succinctly. The whole song is kinda written to the Baltimore hip hop community, really giving it some tough love, and he shouts out folks like Labtekwon, Concrete Foundation, Pen Pals, YBM and Mike McIntosh at the end of the song, which is pretty cool since Born King is probably one of the only rappers in the city these days that sounds like he's following in Lab's footsteps.

Labels: Born King, mixtape/album review, mp3