Call it a blessing and a curse, but we’ve gone from getting a Chino XL album every five years to one every six months. In terms of posthumous rap releases, parallels are often drawn to Tupac Shakur, with official and unofficial albums hastily assembled to capitalise on heightened interest in a deceased artist, but other than their brief “beef” in 1996, that’s where the comparison ends. Chino XL’s fanbase is a different animal. He wasn’t an artist that threatened the Billboard charts. We’re talking lyricism at the highest level, aimed at the most hardcore fan of rap. A rapper’s rapper. But while many associate him with metaphors and battle rap, his music always carried heart and pain that let albums like “Poison Pen” and “RICANstruction” connect with listeners on an emotional level, not just a technical one. The culmination of Chino’s career was distilled into “Darkness and Other Colors“, an incredible LP that was released mere months after his death in 2024. It was controversial at the time because of the dark themes, but there was a public feud which played out on social media between Chino XL’s estate and the music A&R M-80. This looks to now be resolved, meaning Chino XL fans can expect a wave of shelved, incomplete and delayed albums to see the light of day. As a Chino XL fan, that sounds promising, but this “Necksnapper” album has really dampened my expectations.

A Chino and Canibus album is catnip for any rap nerd. Internet messageboards and forums would be highly anticipating such a concept. Well, twenty years ago. Unlike the Nas and DJ Premier record, Chino and Bis don’t really have a history of collaborations outside of the odd guest verse, so an LP of them both sharing the mic inherently possesses an element of mystery to it. Hearing them trying to outdo each other with aggressive, verbose and elite levels of rhyming, should be a treat for anyone interested in Jedi-level emceeing. The “Necksnapper” LP emerged in April 2026, and unfortunately, it’s a major disappointment. Maybe I was expecting too much; forgive me, I’m not on the social media platforms and haven’t followed the full backstory of how this album came together, but taking it at face value, it’s a strange hodgepodge of a record, bogged down by inconsistencies and tracks we’ve heard before. The Chino XL performances are all on point, so much of this negative sentiment is down to Canibus, who veers from his more renowned, varied vocabulary into bizarre ramblings, too much for it not to distract from the whole experience.

Chino XL’s verses follow his more modern, faster-paced rap style that may well prove divisive, but you can’t deny he put all his effort into it. The title track matches the promise of a Chino x Canibus collab, with both emcees shouting each other out, but the Canibus verse immediately raises some questions:

“I’ll beat a freakin’ bear with my Tupperware, huh!
Don’t you ever dare look through my stuff
Kevlar knuckle snuff, the boss said that’s enough
Let him talk, or go put on some gloves
I know you was involved, you illiterate son of a dog
You want the paperwork but you can’t even read the report
And I swear on the beat of my heart
We meet in these streets, you will taste steel from the sword
You want to learn the meaning of war?
You want signed Paris treaty accord?
Okay, let’s get to business, we gon’ be clapping them biscuits
Get hit with some meteoroids
A blood sport with a bleeding result
Zombies walking, sleeping, of course
You got stick, I got staff
I put a hole in that ass so big you’ll feel like the feeling is gone”

Similarly on “We Just Spit Bars”, Chino murders his verse while Bis is rapping about vampire snot and droopy penises:

“Them bitches flip-flop like a cocky pilot’s cock after being target locked
Rotten vampires with garlic in their snot“

When Chino spits “your bars are hard, hard to listen to” he may as well be speaking to Canibus. After just one song, things start to unravel, which is worth highlighting to any readers interested in purchasing the LP. “We Just Spit Bars”, “ICF” and “Abu La Haab” are all previously released Canibus tracks lifted from last year’s compilation “The Almighty Era Volume 2: The Final Chapter”. There are two more tracks from Canibus’ “Self Licking Ice Cream Cone”: “Godz Wrath” is a renamed “The Demi-Side”, remixed with an unreleased Chino verse, while “Champions Part 2” is a remix of “Part 2”, itself a revised version of an old HRSMN track which featured Chino (and loses Planet Asia). This version here is admittedly better than the originals, though.

Chino XL has last year’s brilliantly sombre “Always There”, easily the album’s strongest moment. My issue with the LP that’s presented to us, is that there are three Canibus songs without Chino XL (“Celebration”, “Abu La Haab”, “Bulletproof Metals”), including one of the most baffling inclusions: Canibus rapping over EDM (Electronic Dance Music).

What was the point of this inclusion? To be fair, “Necksnapper” isn’t a complete failure. 2011’s “Cypher of 5 Mics” is lifted from Canibus’ underrated “Lyrical Law” album and remains a vicious pair of verses from the two emcees operating close to their peak. One of the hardest lines Chino ever wrote (“The best thing you’ll ever write is a suicide note”) certainly hits differently in 2026. The album ends with an unreleased Chino verse which features Poison Pen, Jokerr and Block McCloud. No Canibus, though. And that’s ultimately where “Necksnapper” falls apart. In terms of new Chino XL and Canibus songs where they worked together, it’s only the song “Necksnapper”. One song. The rest are remixes, solo tracks or repurposed from other projects. The inclusion of a fifteen-year-old track begs the question why “I Wish U Would” with Royce Da 5’9”, or “Do This” with Bekay aren’t also included.

Canibus was an absolute monster, a long time ago, and hasn’t really reached those heights since (and that’s coming from someone that really rates his 2007-2010 run). He’s just too weird with it. I think it’s the delivery – when he’s saying some crazy shit in the deeper, more conversational manner he’s adopted, it magnifies an inventive, quirky line into something creepy and bizarre. For a record seemingly laser-targeted at fans and/or collectors, it’s difficult to recommend. Chino’s discography was always highly respected within Hip-Hop circles, and a big part of that was because he only put out heat. Everything was 8/10, 9/10 minimum. He had a high bar, as he once stated, “I bring liquor, bench press and write rhymes raw. So I raise the bar, while raisin’ the bar while raisin’ the bar.” Since his passing, “Darkness and Others Colors” is the only release that matched the quality of his previous work, and “Necksnapper” is a genuine disappointment. Glorified leftovers that might serve his most ardent fans wishing to hear everything Chino recorded, but it pales in comparison to his older LPs.