{"id":508826,"date":"2026-06-24T12:28:16","date_gmt":"2026-06-24T12:28:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/508826\/"},"modified":"2026-06-24T12:28:16","modified_gmt":"2026-06-24T12:28:16","slug":"chino-xl-x-canibus-necksnapper-rapreviews","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/508826\/","title":{"rendered":"Chino XL x Canibus :: Necksnapper \u2013 RapReviews"},"content":{"rendered":"

Call it a blessing and a curse, but we\u2019ve 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 \u201cbeef\u201d in 1996, that\u2019s where the comparison ends. Chino XL\u2019s fanbase is a different animal. He wasn\u2019t an artist that threatened the Billboard charts. We\u2019re talking lyricism at the highest level, aimed at the most hardcore fan of rap. A rapper\u2019s rapper. But while many associate him with metaphors and battle rap, his music always carried heart and pain that let albums like \u201cPoison Pen\u201d and \u201cRICANstruction\u201d connect with listeners on an emotional level, not just a technical one. The culmination of Chino\u2019s career was distilled into \u201cDarkness and Other Colors<\/a>\u201c, 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\u2019s 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 \u201cNecksnapper\u201d album has really dampened my expectations.<\/p>\n

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\u2019t 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 \u201cNecksnapper\u201d LP emerged in April 2026, and unfortunately, it\u2019s a major disappointment. Maybe I was expecting too much; forgive me, I\u2019m not on the social media platforms and haven\u2019t followed the full backstory of how this album came together, but taking it at face value, it\u2019s a strange hodgepodge of a record, bogged down by inconsistencies and tracks we\u2019ve 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.<\/p>\n

Chino XL\u2019s verses follow his more modern, faster-paced rap style that may well prove divisive, but you can\u2019t 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: <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll beat a freakin\u2019 bear with my Tupperware, huh!
Don\u2019t you ever dare look through my stuff
Kevlar knuckle snuff, the boss said that\u2019s 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\u2019t 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\u2019s get to business, we gon\u2019 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\u2019ll feel like the feeling is gone\u201d<\/p>\n

Similarly on \u201cWe Just Spit Bars\u201d, Chino murders his verse while Bis is rapping about vampire snot and droopy penises: <\/p>\n

\u201cThem bitches flip-flop like a cocky pilot\u2019s cock after being target locked
Rotten vampires with garlic in their snot\u201c<\/p>\n

When Chino spits \u201cyour bars are hard, hard to listen to\u201d 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. \u201cWe Just Spit Bars\u201d, \u201cICF\u201d and \u201cAbu La Haab\u201d are all previously released Canibus tracks lifted from last year\u2019s compilation \u201cThe Almighty Era Volume 2: The Final Chapter\u201d. There are two more tracks from Canibus\u2019 \u201cSelf Licking Ice Cream Cone\u201d: \u201cGodz Wrath\u201d is a renamed \u201cThe Demi-Side\u201d, remixed with an unreleased Chino verse, while \u201cChampions Part 2\u201d is a remix of \u201cPart 2\u201d, 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. <\/p>\n

Chino XL has last year\u2019s brilliantly sombre \u201cAlways There\u201d, easily the album\u2019s strongest moment. My issue with the LP that\u2019s presented to us, is that there are three Canibus songs without Chino XL (\u201cCelebration\u201d, \u201cAbu La Haab\u201d, \u201cBulletproof Metals\u201d), including one of the most baffling inclusions: Canibus rapping over EDM (Electronic Dance Music). <\/p>\n

What was the point of this inclusion? To be fair, \u201cNecksnapper\u201d isn\u2019t a complete failure. 2011\u2019s \u201cCypher of 5 Mics\u201d is lifted from Canibus\u2019 underrated \u201cLyrical Law\u201d 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 (\u201cThe best thing you\u2019ll ever write is a suicide note\u201d) 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\u2019s ultimately where \u201cNecksnapper\u201d falls apart. In terms of new Chino XL and Canibus songs where they worked together, it\u2019s only the song \u201cNecksnapper\u201d. 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 \u201cI Wish U Would\u201d with Royce Da 5\u20199\u201d, or \u201cDo This\u201d with Bekay aren\u2019t also included. <\/p>\n

Canibus was an absolute monster, a long time ago, and hasn\u2019t really reached those heights since (and that\u2019s coming from someone that really rates his 2007-2010 run). He\u2019s just too weird with it. I think it\u2019s the delivery \u2013 when he\u2019s saying some crazy shit in the deeper, more conversational manner he\u2019s adopted, it magnifies an inventive, quirky line into something creepy and bizarre. For a record seemingly laser-targeted at fans and\/or collectors, it\u2019s difficult to recommend. Chino\u2019s 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, \u201cI bring liquor, bench press and write rhymes raw. So I raise the bar, while raisin\u2019 the bar while raisin\u2019 the bar.\u201d Since his passing, \u201cDarkness and Others Colors\u201d is the only release that matched the quality of his previous work, and \u201cNecksnapper\u201d 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. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Call it a blessing and a curse, but we\u2019ve gone from getting a Chino XL album every five…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":508827,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[146,85,46,409],"class_list":["post-508826","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508826","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=508826"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508826\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/508827"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=508826"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=508826"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=508826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}