I was pretty down on Havoc's 2007 album The Kush, mainly because I expected a lot more for the solo debut from a member of a group as important as Mobb Deep, let alone a rare rapper/producer who's actually good at doing both. Plus Prodigy had just started on a busy little run of much better solo records. And I don't know if Havoc's new one, Hidden Files is a lot better or just a little better, but I'm sure my lowered expectations this time around are helping me enjoy it.

Hidden Files is by no means great, and there's at least one really lame track, which happens to be the single. After months of hearing Ron Browz do budget T-Pain, there's something wholly new and depressing about hearing Ricky Blaze do budget Ron Browz on Hav's "Watch Me" (I know Blaze is a dancehall guy, but still). And even with P upstate for the time being, there's no kind of renewed passion here, like Hav becoming Bun B circa 'free Pimp C,' fighting hard to keep the name alive, he's just biding his time and doing this to keep busy until Mobb Deep can go back at it. But in general he sounds more engaged as a rapper here, less willing to fill up tracks with guests, and it sounds like he's digging deeper into his bag of beats for good stuff. It's always refreshing to hear a pairing like Havoc and Cassidy, two guys who you never really would've thought to put on a track together but make a certain kind of sense on "You Treated Me." The weird popping percussion on "That's My Word" is the kind of nonchalant creativity that Mobb classics used to be made from, and it's good to hear he still has something like that in him.

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