To talk about Queens' Prince SAMO it's worth first mentioning Organized Konfusion, the frequently overlooked duo from New York's golden era of rap dominance. Both Prince Po and Pharoahe Monch's voices work as a conduit for packing dense wordplay and weird turns of phrase into small spaces, their voices rising and stuttering like they're possessed. Prince SAMO has some of that in him as well—he always sounds like he is about to burst in half, skirting the edge of barely controlled anger. Considering the fact that there's a whole crop of new young dudes reverently looking to New York's early to mid-’90s, SAMO seems to have realized that he needs a little more than a crackly horn loop and a couple key lyrics about smoking blunts in stairwells to stand apart, though those things appear as well (and are more than welcome).
Download: Prince SAMO, Street Viceroy