Enter those bloody alleys blocked off with yellow tape and chalk outlines. Secret backrooms riddled with sly crooks and blunt smoke. Slink into the underworld, the seedy shadowland owned by Jeremiah Jae and L'Orange on their noir-hop opus, "The Night Took Us In Like Family."
Consider it the alchemy of Madvillain and "The Maltese Falcon": a five-part fable of tangled crimes, narrow escapes, and raining lead. The door busts open with "A Conspicuous Man." L'Orange's carefully severed cinematic clips hold the frame steady. The Windy City-raised Jae muscles the narrative forward-the hitman creeping. I'm glad to see HipHop is going back to its roots.