Mobb Deep – “Boom Goes The Cannon”
Every month, Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda shares a new Hamilton-inspired song as part of what he calls his Hamildrops. In the recent past, that’s included tracks from people like “Weird Al” Yankovic and the Decemberists — people who, you might not be shocked to learn, might do songs inspired by Broadway musicals. The eternally hard Queens rap legends Mobb Deep are a different breed, but now they’ve given us a Hamildrop, as well.
Prodigy, the deadeyed lyricist who made up half of Mobb Deep, died of complications of sickle cell anemia back in 2017, so they must’ve had the new song “Boom Goes The Cannon” in the vault for a while. It has both members of the group rapping over flighty strings, pledging fealty to each other and talking about revolution. And yes, it does have some lyrics about Hamilton.
There’s a part on the song where Prodigy, after mentioning the “32,000 troops in New York Harbor,” says, “We a powder keg about to explode / Wish we had a man like Hamilton to lighten the load.” Prodigy also claims that he’s just like Hamilton. And this will probably be the only Hamildrop in which the artist tells us to “watch the blood and the shit spray.” Check it out below.