If you were to trace the origins of M.O.P. - as in the infamous ‘Mash Out Posse’ - on a map, your finger would inevitably fall on New York City. Then you’d had have to focus a little harder to find the thorough borough of Brooklyn, then really strain your cornea to locate Saratoga Avenue in the quaint neighborhood of Brownsville. It was there that childhood buddies, angst-ridden teens and now business-handling men, Billy Danze and Lil Fame, connected to become one of hip-hop’s most determined, forthright and incendiary duos. Now signed to Roc-A-Fella Records, and with their long-awaited Ghetto Warfare LP finally on the way, M.O.P. is poised to finally have their music reach the wider audience they’ve long deserved.

Originally, Fame was the DJ of the crew. “Fame was a wheel man, he nice on them shits,” says his partner Billy. “So we used to fuck around in the crib, hook a little mic up or something.” With the urging on of his older brother, Fame - also known as “Slap” - began picking up the mic instead of DJ needles. Laze E. Laze (CEO of Blaze Communications and Family First Productions), an industry insider connected with the legendary Positive K, was a friend of Fame’s brother and had been eyeing the youngster’s talent. In 1992, he placed Fame on a compilation he put together called The Hill That’s Real. Shortly afterward, Fame sent Laze a recording of a song he’d made with a producer called D.R. Period. On the song Fame was rapping alongside Billy Danze - his hypeman at the time - who had just returned from prison. The song in question was their debut anthem and the barometer for their records since, “How About Some Hardcore.”

The momentum from the single, including a gritty, $8,000 video from a then-unknown director named Hype Williams, led to the release M.O.P.’s rugged debut album To The Death (1994). The album sold modestly but caught the ear of Gang Starr’s DJ Premier. Appreciative of their raw brand of hip-hop, Premier had been tapped to remix “How About Some Hardcore” but felt the song was an untouchably classic. He opted instead to create the first of the “Downtown Swinga” series of songs which appeared on the group’s sophomore follow up, Firing Squad. Premo’s been a consistent contributor to the M.O.P. sound ever since, executive producing several of their albums.
While their music has remained steady, growing and maturing exponentially, their record label situations have been a striking contrast. “We’ve actually been on three labels since the last album,” explains Billy. “Loud, Sony and now Roc-A-Fella.” After their debut on Select Records, they released a couple of album on Relativity Records, Firing Squad (1996) and First Family 4 Life (1998), as well as an EP in early 1998, Handle Ur Bizness. Always emotionally charged, their music also reflected a fierce loyalty to the streets as well as a more personal nature. “We kept losing people in between albums. A lot of shit happened,” says Billy referring to issues varying from murdered friends to the passing of parents. All the while their music continued to resonate with listeners.
“Lyrically we’re not one-dimensional but we always want to have that driving shit,” surmises Billy. “We want niggas to bang they fucking head. Everybody knows that. Even motherfuckas that don’t like M.O.P. know what to expect from M.O.P. and we ain’t going to change that.” To their credit, Relativity did grant M.O.P. extensive creative control over their music. However, the label did a poor job of promoting their type of hip-hop, languishing while the label catered to mainstream friendly acts like Bone Thugs and Harmony.

Eventually Relativity came under financial toil and folded. But, in the process Loud Records acquired certain acts; M.O.P. being one of them. Loud had actually been in the bidding for M.O.P.’s services since their debut, but at the time Loud was still relatively small (groups like The Alkaholiks and The Wu-Tang had yet to blow up) and unable to buy out M.O.P.’s contract with their original label Select. Now at a label with considerable muscle, it appeared that M.O.P. would finally received the marketing push necessary to get the masses to hear the music the devout fans and praiseful critics had known about, and had been blasting from their speakers, for years. Further testament to the group’s talents is the countless collaborations they have done with high caliber artists including Gang Starr, Busta Rhymes and Big Pun.

Their uncompromising style and the limitless energy they inevitably bring with them is what the aforementioned artists seek when creating music with M.O.P. “I don’t give a fuck if I’m rapping with Kurtis Blow,” begins Fame “I’m not changing my style for nobody. I don’t give a fuck how long, who you is, who started the game, I don’t give a fuck. But then at the same time that’s what people want us for. They want an M.O.P. song on their album. So it ain’t no disrespect, we just aggressive dudes when it comes to that microphone.”

Their stay at Loud was their most successful to date, with their Warriorz album (2000) spawning two hits, “Cold as Ice” and the riot-inducing “Ante Up”. Tack onto that the blazing “Ante Up Remix” which featured Busta Rhymes, Teflon and Remy Martin, and M.O.P. was prepped to have sales that matched their ghetto credibility. However, while promoting Warriorz overseas, where both songs were chart hits, Loud Records folded, stranding M.O.P. with its distributor, Columbia/Sony. The momentum achieved with the two hits quickly fizzled and the duo decided to look for a fresh start. “After being in the system for 8 years we were ready to leave,” offers Laze, who has remained part of the M.O.P. family, business and personal, throughout the span of their entire career. But leaving Sony proved to be difficult. Dealing with Columbia stalled them for another year and a half. “It’s hard to get off that label and if you get off that label, they’re going to try to shit on you. Which is what they did at radio.”

Fortunately, Laze was still in contact with Damon Dash, who was eager to add to M.O.P. to Roc-A-Fella’s burgeoning roster. “He [Dame Dash] was trying to rock with us when he ain’t have no money. He was really trying to get down with us from day one,” says Laze, referring to talks of M.O.P. and Roc-A-Fella joining forces shortly after Jay-Z’s guest appearance on “4 Alarm Blaze” off of the First Family 4 Life album.

Now comfortable at a label with the vision and dedication to match M.O.P.’s own, the band has started sprinkling the thirsty streets with new material. The super-charged single “Put It in the Air” featuring Jay-Z has been burning mixtapes for the past couple of months. They also contributed the Billy Danze-produced burner, “Wanna Be G’s” to the Bad Boys II Soundtrack album and appeared on Jay Z’s The Blueprint 2: The Gift & The Curse’s “U Don’t Know Remix”. With a late-summer release date in sight for their Roc-A-Fella debut, Ghetto Warfare is guaranteed to be more of the same grenade-rap fans have came to rely on. Production from M.O.P., Premier, DR Period and Nottz guarantee sonic punch to Billy and Fame’s jabbing lyrics. The recipe is straightforward. “We just like to make good music. Do shit that niggas ain’t doing. You got a lot of niggas out there that’s shining and glowing and doing whatever they supposed to be doing.

Some niggas reppin’ the streets mostly, some not. And I ain’t taking away from nobody but our shit is direct. You ain’t got to second-guess or question where the fuck they coming from with this song and how is this album going to be. You know it’s going to be a different variety of songs from different angles and a step up from the last album.”
Songs like the incendiary, DR Period-produced “Fire” or the gut crunching “F M.O.P.” will test your sound systems bass response while giving its tweeters a work out. Many have tried to imitate M.O.P.’s brash style, but none have ever come close to matching their success. And they have no plans on stopping, ever. Says Fame, “ I love the grind. I won’t change nothing that we did. A lot of niggas came and went but we still here. You can throw on any one of our records and love it today like you loved it when you first heard it.”