DJ Muggs vs. Ill Bill – Kill Devil Hills Review

Posted by Michael Melchor on 08.31.2010

This could very well be a sleeper candidate for Hip-Hop album of the year.

Ill Bill (Non-Phixion) and DJ Muggs (Cypress Hill, Soul Assassins) would, on the surface, seem like an odd pairing. Bill is known for a grittier style that prefers raw Rap over watered-down Hip-Hop, while Muggs has produced several hits ranging from “Jump Around” to “Check Yo Self”, not to mention the Cypress Hill catalog.

At the heart of it all , though, both men have the same goal. Bill and Muggs are both about the state of the art of Rap rather than just throwing together a beat and some lines and hoping the Urban community will make it a hit. Kill Devil Hills is a chocolate-and-peanut-butter meeting of differing styles looking to achieve the goal of elevating the game rather than be elevated by it. Mission accomplished.



“Cult Assassin” starts right out with a dramatic, tense beat laid down by Muggs to go along with...a surprisingly subdued flow from Ill Bill. The delivery is serious when he drops lines about the Illuminati, doomsday, the Knights Templar and razor blades in toothbrushes (owitch), but the low-key flow belies how grave he intends to get the message across. It is a good lead for the album that intends to show how dangerous the idea of raising the bar can sound.

Songs like like “Illuminati 666” (the title of which should be another clue) and “Skulls And Guns” (with La Coka Nostra compatriots Slaine and Everlast) carry the essence of enlightenment through gunplay. “Paul Stanley” is a :33 second quote from - oh, come on, take a guess - about how the CIA spent $35 million to research LSD and see how it could become a weapon. Honest. These are all examples of the feeling of conspiracy, the weight of the government on its citizens, and overcoming great conspiracies that permeates much of Kill Devil Hills.

Yeah, it all sounds like a load of hooey, and the over-seriousness of many of the subject matter will probably turn away most casual Rap fans. For those willing to stick out tales of cabals and gunplay, Bill’s rhymes and Muggs’s production behind him don’t have make you believe a war of the mind is imminent. The mood they create and the way it translates to the feeling of a boxer bobbing and weaving, looking for the perfect opening to do blunt-force damage is undeniable. Whether spinning counterplots or concentrating on making lesser MCs head back to the lab and start from scratch, Kill Devil Hills lends itself to a sound of urgency that Hip-Hop needs their help.

Sticking to at least one Hip-Hop convention, several guest stars drop by to help out on the record. Many of them sound out of their element, but all of them sound like there’s nowhere else they’d rather be. Raekwon shows up on “Chase Manhattan” to relate another tale of crime that he does so well. Slaine and Everlast make “Skull And Guns” even grittier (as if it were possible), and Vinnie Paz (Jedi Mind Tricks) and Muggs’s Cypress Hill partner B-Real lay murder rap over the title track that should have heads bobbing for quite some time to come.

The 411: Kill Devil Hills is the kind of record Hip-Hop needs right now, although most heads will probably turn away from it because it’s too foreboding. Corporate Hip-Hop, whether it’s handling wanna-be thugs or talking about getting that paper, has become light and airy. Ill Bill and DJ Muggs take us back to a time when raw, real Rap could bob heads as well as put the brains inside them to work. With exemplary beats and a granite flow, Kill Devil Hills may well be a sleeper candidate for Hip-Hop album of the year.

Final Score:  9.0   [  Amazing ]