01. Typical Introduction 02. Warped Wax 03. The Critic 04. Typical Interlude 05. Gun Girl 06. S & M 07. Hot Sand (feat. Losaka & Eibol) 08. FBLS Amidst a surplus of wormholes traveled a thousand times over is a slivering creature breaking the walls as he passes by. Nobs' first LP, Musicide, made distant echoes, but was overshadowed by other releases and heard by a handful in a sparse crowd. This is the backlash for not listening the first time around. Typical Hip Hop Shit is a title meant to either scare away the elitist new jacks or summon them with hopes of "that real hip hop shit." Either way dismissing this album as anything in the proximity of typical is blunder impossible to make by any fan of hip hop. Nobs pours passion and creativity into every track on a short eight song EP. The quality from track to track, front to back is unheard of in a record store shelf overflowing with watered down 20 song LPs. It is rebellion against capitalism and the belief quantity is more welcomed compared to quality. Nobs is the struggling unappreciated craftsman in the Industrial Revolution 2003. Want to break your neck in head nodding panic? "Let's start it like this son," chants a Raekwon sample at the beginning of "Warped WAX." Nobs injects a vicious anger to every syllable over a pulsating beat laced with weeping violins and a hammering piano. His bitterness and cynicism drives the nail through your ears so it is understood, "sarcasm goes a long way, but I don't give a shit/ I want the fame without the fame now look who's the fucking hypocrite." Following this thumping battle royal song is a topic untouched in music as Nobs shows sympathy for "the enemy." He pays homage to the difficult and well-hated job of "The Critic." This ode to the writer burdened with power to make or break the music of tomorrow speaks more truth, then some will be able to handle. Nobs performs the dismount and sticks the landing with this track. Though, paranoia seeps in causing me to think he wrote this to get on critic's good side and receive positive reviews, the music speaks for itself. Nobs writes with an unabashed honesty lamenting, "nowadays he gets paid to complain about vocals and sentence structure/ he's a lover not a fighter/ just a writer/ with stress on the brain because under the bashing is his name/ and you blame him, but he's just a person/ who simply may not have liked the remix version/ of the song he's heard several times throughout his life/ under the knife while you stand in the spotlight/ sits behind his desk with a pencil/ deciphering the lyrics and dissecting the instrumental/ your own creation." and closes with a clutch Common sample, "if I don't like it, I don't like it that don't mean that I'm hating." Nobs breaks down in the middle of the EP and lives up to the stereotypes provided by Eternal and Icon the MIC King of "trying to be Slug" with the songs "Gun Girl" and "S&M." Both songs are unique ultra- violent female tales untouched by the infamous lyricist with women troubles, but parallels are too obvious to be avoided. The bright side is these parallels reflect corporate journalism's attempts to compare Slug to Eminem. Nobs is not the next Slug just like Slug is not the next great white hope to be whored out by the industry. The album ends with "FLBS", a calming climax for Nobs to keeps his flow polished and toy with different approaches to build the listener's anticipation for his next release. The song has a few ridiculous moments of wordplay like, "while fiends chop cocaine/ Preme chops Coltrane/ and my Reebok's sole stain in the ox cold vein," and overall it serves its' purpose; planting thoughts of what will follow this EP. Despite the entertaining voice messages from emcees telling him to give up rapping scattered across the album, Nobs has offered something innovative yet familiar. Typical Hip Hop Shit saves the day to refresh our memories of why we started listening to hip hop and why it is an art form we love. - Blake Gillespie