Maybe you've heard, maybe you haven't heard of the effort put forth on A Nightmare On King Street. There is potential of what I'd like to call "bumping singles". From the first unexpected growl to the last, I listened thouroughly to the CD without any concious effort....kids, that's a good thing. We all know the deal with so many mixtapes out there, that have maybe one or two shining tracks, then the rest of the album is down the gutter. I could actually listen to the whole 'tape, and as I said there were some "bumping singles", but almost every track was solid. Now with that said let's get down to the actual review aspect of this article.

As stated before, the damn gutter growl, was so unexpected, with track titles like “Fresh Like Me”, and “Oh So Nice”, I expected something a tad smoother, however I wasn't dissapointed. I don't know if everyone knows this but before Kid Rock was a famous rockstar, he was a Detroit inner city rapper, who influenced many, including the liking of Marshall Mathers. JBling reminds me to a tee of exactly the young Kid Rock, with his growling lyrics, about girls, weed, and getting messed up.

The highlighted tracks that I, personally found on this track, that are Ipod material are “Grind Mode”, “My Love Song”, “Some Girls”, and “Walk Out On Me”, with the best track on the tape being “Walk Out On Me”. Creativity shines in “My Love Song”, as the topic was completely flipped and the raw materials given with the titles were unexpected, which was the thing that made the track. In, “Some Girls”, J.Bling meshed really well with the other emcee on the track, Wolf Relik, both did not dissapoint, and carried that track well. “Grind Mode”, is an all out assault of verses by various emcee’s and in my opinion could have been featured on a bigtime DJ’s mixtape.

There were some tracks that had a massive amount of potential too, such as “Oh So Nice” and “Kidz These Dayz”. In “Oh So Nice”, the beautiful music stylings of Katya brought a sort of edge to the track, with her amazing vocals. J.blings verse also was very good in the song, and flowed smooth. “Kidz These Dayz”, however left me wanting more. With the title, I thought it would be an awesome track, but there seemed to be something that was just lacking on it.

Overall this mixtape is worth the usual 12 dollars you’d pay for a DJ’s mixtape in your usual music store….except it’s free. Download it, It’s worth it. It’s original, and has songs you can dance too, as there are lots of club bangers, but you can also get down with your lady, on some tracks. All in all, it has a little bit of every style, so everyone can find at least one thing they like out of it.

*Stand out tracks: 5. Grind Mode, 7. My Love Song, 12. Some Girls, and 17. Walk Out On Me

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J.Bling...when that name is uttered, what really comes to mind? let's be honest, it sounds like someone that rolls with Soulja Boys crew, or even if you can remember them "Dem Franchize boyz". Though definitely not linked to the likes of any of those camps, J.Bling as an artist would seem to bring the same commercial attitude to the game of hip hop. The only difference on his part, is his music is substantially more enjoyable in comparison. Taking a listen to one track off of this mixtape will illustrate the fine line between commercial and trash...J.Bling does it so well that he walks, runs and even salsas on it.

From first audio instance, J.Blings voice brings a definite presence not known in the underground industry. With vocal chords of sand paper, this artists graces and laces every track with authority and valour. From his bone chilling laugh, to his whiplash verbal presence every track is a trip down, a bumpy road of base and snare. In "Fresh Like Me" J takes aim at all the people around thinking they are better than him. He critiques them and equal embarrasses them. it's unknown whether or not he was taking aim directly and throwing subliminal shots, or if he was calling out the majority, but what is for sure is the message was sent and delivered. One thing i did notice was there is a featured artist by the name of Katya on this mixtape, at first embrace, her voice is sultry and can undress you with it's sexy appeal. Though as the three tracks she was featured on went on, the voice wore on me, and became a bit irritating, nothing too bad, but it felt she was stressing the feeling, rather than feeling the feeling. One thing that was a definite constant within this mixtape is the great and catchy instrumental choice, very well thought out by the artist. From songs like "Kids These Days" to "Stay Lit" the instrumentals as well as the intensity keep rising as the tracks go by. Now onto my favourite track of the mixtape entitled "My Love Song", from the first few seconds of the instrumental i was sold on the song, it was well scripted and put together, giving marijuana human characteristics was an ingenious idea that passed with flying colours...

A Nightmare On King Street, is a mixtape that takes a voyage from hard to harder, there is no real soft song on the tape. It is important to keep consistently on topic in your work, although J.Bling may not have had the best topics and many of his tracks were of the same topic, he stayed consistently in his message, which was felt overall as just to party and bullshit. Even the songs that are meant to be heartfelt are still uptempo.There is nothing wrong with this if you do it right, which J.Bling has proceeded to definitely do, with close attention paid to his flow on all of his verses and as well as his lyrical content (I.E overuse of vulgarity) J.Bling can definitely take the nightmare from king street worldwide.

Death Before Dishonor by J Bling is a Canadian underground release of mainstream tracks that doesn't suck. In most cases Canadian mainstream geared songs tend to sound fake, or out of place within a Canadian Hip Hop market of mostly alternative hip hop.

It begins with a normal intro containing mostly talking and a verse of self hype. The first song "True Crime" featuring Cutta is a well produced track and both J Bling and Cutta deliver. Although this song is one of the best songs it's not meant to be a first single but is a track that definitely could be a jewel on an LP.

"Push It" featuring B-Leave uses the original Rick Ross instrumental. In my opinion it's better than the original track, and its not hard to see why. J Bling has the first verse with well added adlibs throughout. Then B-Leave is up second and delivers with a harsh verse. Usually the extensive use of "motherfucka" is a negative in a verse it added th B-Leave's verse making it one of the best featured verses of the entire cd.

Another collaboration "Git it Poppin" is a solid track; J Bling starts off delivering a very nice verse. Chedda Cheese follows up with another nice verse. His sound is very unique and I haven't heard anyone else like him. Lastly J Bizz has the last verse and I was very impressed by him. His style reminds me of the underground hip hop that is common in the Mid Western United States, such as Detroit.

The solo joint "Ready For War" has a banging beat and a good chorus. A stand out line in this track was "I got more Gigs than an Ipod Nano". I found that very entertaining. "Homeboyz" featuring J Blings actual home boys, Willy Whyte and Pro G all drop nice in this song. The chorus contains a lot of reverb but still stays strong. Pro G had my favorite verse but Willy summed up the message the best, "Never forget ya mothafuckin' homeboyz".

One of my favorite songs is "Love Yet Hate" it has a chorus with too much reverb but J Bling switches up his voice here using a less raspy voice. The flow is more laid back and the voice I perfered. Sadly this was its only appearance. "Rock Hard" was your average hype track but contained nice lyrics all the same. What stood out most for me in this song is the beat which was sick and had a cool guitar sample (I'm guessing) in the background.

One song that I really liked was promise. It has a nice singing chorus with nice verses that go perfectly together. There isn't much more that can be said about this track except that it is a solid track and one of my favorites.

I was very supprized when i first heard I'm Fresh" it contained a sample of "The Final Countdown" by the band Europe. This song quickly made me fall in love with its beat and sample and J Bling's verses defently proved that as he said he is "fresh from head to toe".

"Warriors" featuring Pro G is another nice track containing a chorus with J Bling yellin "warriors" and Pro G rapping the rest of the chorus. Pro G comes nice with it but the stick out line for me in this song was J Bling's "Guns don't kill people...bitch i do!"

Although i really enjoyed the sampling of Europe "The End" supprized me again. The only word that comes to mind when i hear the use of sampling in this song is AMAZING. "Hurt" by Johnny Cash is another unique sample that J Bling has got and it makes it my favorite use of sampling on th entire mixtape. To go with the amazing sampling J Bling spits some of his best verses on the final songs of his mixtape. Overall this is a great song.

Death Before Dishonor is a very solid mixtape and a good listen whether you are bumping it at a party or just vibing to it in your car. It contains unique samples and that is definitely a high point in its production. J Bling and everyone featured on the mixtape come hard and deliver making this a Canadian mixtape to get your hands on. Through the fog of Canadian artists releasing mixtapes trying to be something they're not and use the success of hip hop in the states to gain fame in Canada comes a mixtape that is far from the Canadian norm for mainstream hip hop. Death Before Dishonor is a mixtape in true fashions and comes through and delivers a honest quality product.

--2.sicc (rob brown)