Mafia Bidness Album Review

I can’t lie, in the months leading up to it, I was highly anticipating Shoreline Mafia’s debut album drop, ‘Mafia Bidness’. On almost every post on OhGeesy’s Instagram, there was some desperate comment, practically voicing my own thoughts, asking when the album was dropping. OhGeesy replied to each one with something cryptic, like ‘soon!’ or ‘this summer’. And so, I waited as patiently as I could.

On the day of release, I almost wasn’t as gassed as I had been a few weeks prior, potentially because the group is splitting, or just because I had bad wifi. In any case, a day or two later, I played the album from start to end; here are my thoughts.

Album tracklist

‘Intro’ starts the album with an almost syrupy, drowsy audio. Lean is, of course, mentioned—in this way, it reminds me of ‘Whuss The Deal’. It starts the album off in an interesting way, giving the listener an insight into Shoreline’s overall energy and vibe.

Then we move onto ‘Run It Back’. This one, admittedly, is one of my favourite tracks off the project. I enjoy the intro immensely; it feels as though it’s leading up to something huge, and 03 Greedo’s feature really compliments the slow beat. Geesy’s verse slaps, naturally, and the chorus is catchy. Rob Vicious’s verse is cold too, and it’s nice to see he goes hard even though we haven’t seen him on a track in a while. In fact, all four members really go all out here, and that’s something I can appreciate about this song—the sense that Shoreline still comes together to bang out a good track.

‘All The Time’ is ok, I’d say. It didn’t overwhelm me, and I didn’t think the beat was particularly original. That’s one thing I’d say I’ve noticed a lot on this project: I’ve always loved RonRon’s beats on Shoreline songs, but not many of the tracks stood out to me in terms of production, which was surprising, considering how original some of their other songs are in that sense.

‘Fuck It Up’—well. Not much to say on this one: I expected a better track with Mike Sherm, given that he’s one of the Bay Area’s finest. It wasn’t that his verse was poor, but the track just lacked the originality I hoped it would. Oh well.

‘Change Ya Life’ was hands down my favourite song on the album. This one stands out to me, and in terms of ranking with their other songs, I’d place it up there with ‘Pressure’, ‘Spaceship’, ‘Whuss The Deal’, etc. This is ShorelineDoThatShit level to me.

The beat is completely unique, the production stellar on this one. I love the contrast between OhGeesy’s calmer, sweet verses, and Fenix’s edgier ones. To me, this is special because we see a tenderness in OhGeesy we haven’t seen before, as soppy as that sounds. I’d give this a 15/10 if I could.

After ‘Change Ya Life’, ‘Big Tymer’ is a bit of a disappointment in my eyes. The production, in my opinion, reverts back to its less impressive self, but I can appreciate Fenix’s verse and the features—they went hard.

‘Poe The Drop’: I was gassed for this one, especially as Geesy’s always shown himself to be a bit of a Future fan—I was excited for Shoreline to have such a huge feature on their project. I like the intro beat; at first I thought my phone was lagging, but when I realised it was actually just the beat, it grew on me. Given both parties’ codeine addictions, I thought the slow, glitchiness of it was fitting. Rob’s verse was good—pretty autotuned, which is quite uncharacteristic of Shoreline, but not bad still. Unfortunately, Geesy’s verse was really repetitive for me, but his voice had that usual relaxed, seductive quality to it, which we do see throughout the album. It was fun to hear Future’s verse, but it’s not a song I’ll add to my playlist or replay a lot.

I liked ‘Do the Most’—in fact, I thought this was one of their strongest feature songs, probably because I’ve started listening to a lot more Southern rap, and can appreciate Duke Deuce’s verse: I really liked it, actually. It wasn’t monotonous; his diction was perfect. I’ve added this one to my favourites.

‘Perc Popper’ was the one of the first featureless songs on the album to come out. When I first listened, I wasn’t particularly taken, but after listening to it a few times, I can conclude that it’s decent. Not one of their best songs by any means, but one of the better songs off the album, with a good vibe.

Honestly, I’ve only listened to ‘Hold On/Musty Freestyle’ a couple times, partially because it’s long and also because the beat doesn’t entice me as much. I like OhGeesy’s verse, and was excited to hear Drakeo’s part of the song, which was typically cold. I can appreciate Drakeo on any track, and the Musty beat is particularly iconic—he rides it like it was made for him. The two parts to the track don’t gel at all, though. I wouldn’t listen to it regularly.

‘How We Do It’ is definitely interesting. I can appreciate the 90s beat sample, and the track definitely stands out from others on the album because of it, but I wasn’t really sure of some of Fenix’s verse. Wiz Khalifa’s was good, but the song isn’t one I’d listen to again.

‘Aww Shit’ is okay. Again, the beat is nice, but just doesn’t stand out to me. I like OhGeesy’s sleepy vocals, but I’ve come to expect good vocals from him, anyway. The one thing I really liked about this song was Kato’s verse. We haven’t seen much of him at all, but when he is on a track, he does go hard.

‘Bitches’ is definitely one of the better songs on the project. OhGeesy comes with a different energy on this, and I love 1TakeJay’s signature flow, which really compliments the track.

‘Gangstas & Sippas’ has two features on it, YG and Maryland-based Q Da Fool. I love YG and was gassed to hear his verse, but it fell flat, for me. In my view, his flow just isn’t right for the beat on the song: it didn’t sound quite right.

‘Hoe Shit’ is a solo Fenix track, and I thought it was brilliant. Given the group’s drama and apparent beef between Fenix and Geesy, I thought it was good to hear Fenix on a song by himself, and his digs at OhGeesy. This song convinces me that Fenix will still do well on his own; he’s definitely in his element.

When the track list came out, I was surprised (and intrigued) to hear Kodak Black would be on a song. ‘On the Low’ isn’t bad, but it isn’t great either. Kodak’s vibe is very, very different from Shoreline’s, which isn’t a bad thing necessarily, but I don’t think it really works here. Maybe just a personal preference.

‘Brand New’ is okay. I don’t have much to say about it, to be honest. I love Geesy, but it sounds like he’s taking the sleepy, seductive thing a bit too far here. The track didn’t stand out to me, and neither did the production.

‘Fully Loaded’ is also okay. I find Geesy’s verse a bit boring, but I liked Rob’s low vocals. For me, the best part of the song was the features: they gave a different dynamic and helped switch it up a bit.

I waited for ‘Ride Out’ a long, long time, ever since I heard a snippet on Adam22’s vlog. It’s interesting. I love Yachty, and his adlibs are fun. He carries the chorus, which is okay. I like Geesy’s and Fenix’s verses here, though. It’s not a bad song, but it’s not incredible either, I’d say.

I won’t lie, I only listened to ‘Fucc Cuh’ once or twice before writing this. I’m listening to it now whilst writing, of course, but it made me sad before. Oh dear. Anyway, feelings aside, I’m pleasantly surprised. It’s very chill and actually quite sweet, which is something I love about Greedo’s music in general. The beat suits him as well, and Geesy’s verse fits the beat. I love how this really felt like Greedo’s song, and that Shoreline have given him a chance to keep putting out good music whilst he’s locked up. The outro is a soundbite of waves, which is fitting for the group, and is also a tribute to Mac P Dawg (rest easy). Overall, I really like it. In a way, I see this as the last song of the album, as Bands doesn’t really count in my eyes. And what a nice way to finish.

‘Bands’ is a classic, and always will be. This is probably the group’s most famous song, and one of the few which has all four members on it. If you do count it as part of ‘Mafia Bidness’, even though it doesn’t quite fit, it rounds off the album wonderfully. It’s the old Shoreline, together for a good three minutes. No matter what happens to the group, their old music will always live on.

Overall, I have to admit I was a little disappointed by the album as a whole. I was expecting better, but at the same time, it would’ve been very difficult to beat their previous work. I guess I was hoping for ShorelineDoThatShit level tracks, and I think ‘Change Ya Life’ is definitely up there, because of its unique production especially, and because it brings something new to the table. That’s it—ShorelineDoThatShit is so special to me because nearly every track had perfect production and vocals, but each stood out from the other. Unfortunately, I just don’t see that here—apart from a couple, all the songs blend into each other because of their beats, which is a pity.