All City

They're preppy, white, university-educated, and from the 'burbs--Mobb Deep, meet your worst nightmare. Desperately trying to stave off the novelty-act accusations from naysayers who might question their cheap Beastie Girls shtick, Hesta Prynn, Spero, and Sprout flow like Valley Girls Gone Wild on the mic--except they're from New York. "Ignite" kicks off the set and is a good harbinger of feminist things to come: "on one track you're dropping hos, like dropping dropping bombs, next track you're writing odes unto your moms." Oh yes, Northern State has spunk. On "Girl for All Seasons" they tackle body-image issues, and on "Don't Look Down," they spit close-to-home lines like "I'm getting out of this city any way I can, I’ll be a soccer mom in a minivan." Boasting production credits from fine knob-twiddlers like the Roots' Questlove, Muggs, and Pete Rock, Northern State is clearly no joke, although their half-baked metaphors and whiny flows don't always do the beats justice. Still, Northern State reminds us that in many ways hip-hop itself has grown up and left the 'hood for the 'burbs. --Dalton Higgins