“ C.N.N., desert men, holding the chrome with gorilla grip, Sing Sing, straight convict. With a piano sample making for a foreboding and moody soundscape, Tragedy steals the show with his unique blend of violence and Islamic-slash-Middle-East references… Tragedy Khadafi at one point talks about checking someone’s anus so they can thieve every last ounce of cocaine from them. The track includes the sometimes missing Capone on one of the verses and there’s a narrative from all involved. The track is mean, the very definition of hardcore Hip-Hop. The next song is “Stick You” which opens on a rainy scene with a group planning a stick up. There’s no Capone but Busta Rhymes pops up toward the end for a quick musical cameo. Thug from Tragedy’s 25 To Life Entertainment aka 25 To Life Records bragging about the label-slash-clique in the chorus and in his verse. “ I keep it real wit’ a nigga keep it real wit’ me, I cut the hand off a nigga tryin’ steal from me, 2-5 be that bomb-diggy bomb you see, black juice in the Yukon driver’s seat” “Driver’s Seat” then follows which starts off sounding like an average song but the chorus which includes a reference to Islamic punishment changes that… His trademark “What What!” later became a crossover phenomenon when it was used as the main component to his Neptunes produced track “Superthug”. These lyrics might sound basic when written down but Noreaga’s flow and delivery was infectious and his personality raised these simple lyrics to something special. This simplistic and somewhat lazy rhyming style coupled with Noreaga’s unorthodox delivery, made for a very different sound when compared to the other super-lyrical rappers out at the time (think Big Pun and Chino XL).
Stay with gat on my waist, give the god some space, shoot you up above waist” Put the bogey out in your face, now your face laced like ash tray face. By missing determiners and pronouns from his sentences and rhyming words with themselves (which I think it’s called an “Identical Rhyme”) Noreaga was definitely different. With lines like “Yo time zone, cabron, maricon” this multilingual blend made for a very unique vocal. This is one of Noreaga’s solo tracks, he raps over a sorrowful piano sample and introduces the listener to his sometimes abstract lines incorporating Spanish and English slang. The first song “Blood Money” sets the tone for much of the album. Therefore it might be more appropriate to say this album is by Noreaga-N-Tragedy-N-Capone, at least unofficially.
In my opinion, The War Report was as much Tragedy’s album as it was Noreaga and Capone’s.īecause of his imprisonment, Capone only appears in five of the songs, Noreaga appears in every song with four solo joints, and Tragedy is the featured artist in eight songs. With Khadafi appearing on more than half the songs, he was much more than a “featured artist”. With Capone being imprisoned for a parole violation during the album’s recording, the album was completed with the help of fellow Queensbridge artist Tragedy Khadafi (as well as Mobb Deep and a few others).
In this introduction, we hear Capone and Noreaga talk about how many people from their block are locked up in prison, which is ironic if not apt since Capone gets sent to prison during the album’s creation. The album begins with “Intro” with its bumping beat courtesy of Charlemagne and there’s also a sample of Royal Flush’s “Worldwide” from Ghetto Millionaire. This album wasn’t Mafioso Rap or 1980s-sampling Hip-Pop, this was undiluted, unashamed hardcore, East Coast Hip-Hop music. An album like this proved that Hip-Hop didn’t have to conform to the ever-popular shiny suit, fish-eye video, and radio-friendly production combo. According to some sources this LP went gold. Released on Penalty Recordings, Tommy Boy Records, and 25 To Life Entertainment, The War Report was a relative success making it into the Billboard charts. With “Mafioso” and “Jiggy” rap being the dominant sub-genres during the mid-nineties, Capone-N-Noreaga took Hip-Hop music back to its early-nineties incarnation a time when gritty tales of realism were rife, a time when baggy jeans and Timbs were preferred over designer labels and gaudy jewellery. Rappers only a few years prior, used to be unafraid to sound “underground” but thanks to Puff Daddy’s dominance, many Hip-Hop artists began to make Pop-friendly songs intended to appeal to non-rap fans. During an era of widespread crossing over by many Hip-Hop artists, this LP felt very fresh. The pair released their début album The War Report in 1997 and it was a refreshing listen during a time filled with Pop music sampling and radio-friendly sounds. Noreaga (now known as N.O.R.E.) from LeFrak City and Capone from Queensbridge formed the Hip-Hop duo Capone-N-Noreaga (sometimes shortened to C-N-N or C.N.N.).