‘We Are the Streets’: The Lox’s Fierce Second Album
The album is the sound of a group both ferociously celebrating its liberation and seething with indignation.
Hip-hop history tells us hell hath no fury like a skilled rapper scorned. Except for maybe three of them. Case in point, The Lox. Members of Sean Combs’s Bad Boy Records’ roster at the peak of the label’s late-’90s hit-making prowess, the Yonkers, NY trio earned a platinum-selling 1998 debut, Money, Power & Respect, propelled by its hit title track – a visceral distillation of Bad Boy’s aspirational ethos. Commercial success notwithstanding, Jadakiss, Styles P, and Sheek Louch clashed acrimoniously with Combs, and desired a less flossy musical direction more accurately reflective of their Y.O. street pedigrees (“Lox” being an acronym for Living Off Xperience). Prompted by the group’s “Let the Lox Go” campaign (and an infamous face-to-face with Combs that allegedly resulted in an airborne chair), the parties parted ways. But the trio’s resentment (particularly over publishing splits, of which Combs still retained a percentage until the mid-’00s) nonetheless festered.
Thus, The Lox’s sophomore album, We Are the Streets, is the sound of a group both ferociously celebrating its liberation and seething with indignation. Lyrically, Jada, Styles, and Sheek could always be relied upon for a certain oh-no-they-didn’t recklessness. Now fully working within the comfort of their hometown Ruff Ryders enclave, they’re even more brazen. Setting the tone, the opening track, “F*** You,” is punctuated by Styles informing adversaries, “Bullet off my waist hit you up/ F*** you/ Watch you die on the streets/ F*** you/ Whoever feel sad at the funeral/ F*** them too.” The title track’s Puff-directed invective includes Jadakiss declaring, “First one talking that family s***/ Then get a lot of dough and don’t give the family s***/ I don’t care how many checks you wrote/ I just wanna see how you gonna dance when your neck get broke.” Periodic disparagements of “shiny suits” and a sardonic interlude entitled “Rape’n U Records” sustain these agitation levels.
Amidst the venom and unadulterated ruggedness, The Lox exhibit a knack for churning out remarkably catchy singles, if of the explicit variety. A veritable license to ill in response to all forms of disrespect, the Swizz Beats-produced “Wild Out” inverts the hook of the prior year’s Ruff Ryders ft. Jay-Z smash “Jigga My N*gga” (also produced by Swizz), stacking layers of shouted voices for its arena-ready chant. “Ryde or Die B****”’s thug dream girl fantasy is boosted by Timbaland’s irresistible bossa-like guitar groove and a ribald hook alluringly delivered by Eve.
Ultimately The Lox’s appeal, whether hooky or straight hood, is based on chemistry. If Jada is the group’s charismatic gravitational center, and Sheek its live wire wild card, Styles is its conscience. Between the collective’s drug hustle insights, violent threats, and frequent allusions to getting head in the whip, SP’s gruff timbre reveals resignation and regret. “I pray to God that we make it to Heaven/ But the only thing we makin’ is Channel 11,” he says soberly on “Felony N*ggas.” On the DJ Premier-produced “Recognize,” he admits, “Ain’t it hard to bust your gun, go home, and mold your kid?/ I’m ashamed I sell crack, but I’ma ryde for the moment.” At such moments, We Are the Streets is its realest.
