With No More Prisons 2, Raptivism presents us with a compact 12-track compilation of new songs and a handful of remixes. The thumping boom-bap is still here and the conscious lyricism hasn’t gone anywhere either. But despite the album’s length being cut in half since the first installment, there aren’t many tracks that really reach out and grab your attention. From the first compilation even the track “Evolution”, the ultra-mellow collaboration between the Last Emperor and Vinia Mojica, managed to provide a wake up call for self-awareness. This song proved you don’t need to be hard hitting to catch a listeners attention. Meanwhile, others kept it hardcore.  

    This time around the remixes outshine the often-unexciting original material. Take Fredone’s haunting remix of Akbar’s “Battle Cry”. Over a dark combo of bass, drum kicks and an eerie piano, Akbar’s lines like, “My people dying while you trying to save the earth/You need to stop lying and save yourself first” are extra-accentuated. Another notable remix is DJ Shame’s reworking of Dead Prez’s “Behind Enemy Lines (DJ Shame Mix)”, which adds a little energy and thump to the original production. Nice, but why Dead Prez didn’t have a new cut featured is strange.  

    Of the new original material on No More Prisons 2 “Elusive Freedom” by Mystic featuring Spontaneous and Big Dro is worth repeated listening as is Krumb Snatcha’s “Hold Tha Key 2″. The latter features this Gang Starr foundation affiliate kick simple yet uplifting rhymes over Edo. G’s signature production.

    Even with a few worthy cuts, by and large this compilation didn’t do much to build off the first installment. Songs like Shabaam Sahdeeq’s “Take Me Out” (featuring Stohl) just don’t leave much reason to want to listen. When you’re going to hear an MC take on the American prison system, you only wish they would do so to the caliber of the Last Emperor or Dead Prez. If Raptivism continues this series, we’ll see if they can come full circle the third time around.