There are two ways to tell if an upcoming album is going to be a letdown:

• When the artist starts talking about his next project before the new project even comes out. See: Common hyping up his No I.D.-helmed The Dreamer/The Believer even before Universal Mind Control was released. And what happened? UMC was easily one of the five worst things to happen to human ears. (That is not an exaggeration.)
• When the artist puts out a free project immediately before or after the album drops. See Lil Wayne putting out the mildly disappointing Sorry 4 The Wait right before the vastly disappointing Tha Carter IV.

That's why we should all temper our excitement about Slaughterhouse's upcoming major-label debut Welcome To Our House, which has been preceded by a mixtape full of non-stop bars called On The House. Chances are it'll end up being far more entertaining than the actual album; Whereas Welcome will have a few grasps for radio play and some standard major-label tropes, On The House is mostly just an endless rap orgy. Which makes it perfect for a Slaughterhouse challenge! Here's how it works: We'll give each individual rapper's performance on each song that features at least 75% of the group one to four points; the best verse gets four, the worst one. At the end, we'll average out the scores and see who Slaughterhouse'd it hardest.

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Raekwon, Smif-N-Wessun, Joell Ortiz
Celebrate Brooklyn! at Prospect Park Bandshell
Saturday, July 9

Better than: "Salem (DJ set)" at Brooklyn Bowl

The Prospect Park Bandshell is probably the best place to catch a hip-hop show in the New York City summer. Yes, you're going to have to stand in a line that stretches beyond the park's BBQs and puggles to get a metal detector wand waved in front of your junk. (Uh, did you guys do that before the Andrew Bird show?) But the park's all-inclusivity and neighborhood picnic feel makes it the rare occasion to see, say, Skyzoo perform his underrated, chest-caving "Speakers On Blast" while watching antsy little kids fidget like they're at the opera and earnest, elderly white ladies making the most of their Celebrate Brooklyn! memberships.

Fortunately no one celebrates Brooklyn like Joell Ortiz, who somehow managed to perform "Brooklyn" and "Brooklyn Bullshit" back to back for Saturday's Lyricist Lounge-curated throwdown. Naturally, he got a hero's welcome from his borough, but he didn't understood the neighborhood as well as Smif-N-Wessun's Tek, who performed their "Timz N Hood Check "while literally pushing his daughter in a stroller. Hello, Park Slope!

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Slaughterhouse
S.O.B.'s
Wednesday, May 25

Better than: Quoting Yung Joc lyrics.

Even though the lineup had changed, the promo flyer for last night's show at S.O.B.'s still showed off Crooked I's scowl, his name looming large alongside. "I know originally we were doing a Crooked I show," he said, ""but it's a rare occasion when all of my Slaughter brothers are in one city." And with that, he cut his solo set to two songs and brought out the rest of the gang--first Royce, then Joell--to perform "Sound Off." The gimmick allowed each member of Slaughterhouse to have individual shine, even though they each have their own spotlights. (Joe Budden, whose mouth runs on a treadmill, is a walking spotlight unto himself.)

The criticism that Slaughterhouse sometimes gets involves the members trying to make each song their own and therefore fighting one another, but in person their teaming up made sense. They move like a volleyball team: serve, rotate, repeat. Generous, they finish one another's lines, giving a thundering boom to each punch.

Last night there were a lot of punches, so many spin-it-back moments that Slaughterhouse shows require a DVR. Crooked I: "My father didn't want me here, but I broke through the Trojan." Royce da 5'9, from "Fast Lane," his new team-up with Eminem: "My slow flow is euphoric, it's like I rap endorphins."

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Image via Darrell Bell

Hip-hop is the world's most brazenly capitalist genre of music. If Jay-Z's not talking about playing Monopoly with real cash, then Kanye West's tweeting about the cherub-motifed Persian rugs and golden goblets he's just scored at Fishs Eddy. But while certain rotund rap types would have you believe they were running extensive criminal enterprises before they decided to pursue a career in rhymed verse, the truth is more mundane. Most rappers suffer the rite of working demoralizing dead-end jobs while attempting to jump-start their careers and clock up music industry cash, whether it's the Wu-Tang Clan's Method Man greeting tourists at the Statue of Liberty, Biggie bagging groceries at a Met Foods supermarket, or Kanye's mush-mouthed rapping friend Consequence ringing up monochromatic sweater vests at GAP. So when Fat Joe--who just so happens to have released a new album last week--opened his heart to us about sweating it out as a security guard one summer at a sneaker store, we decided to round up a whole batch of New York City's hardest-working rappers--including Prince Paul, El-P, Joell Ortiz, and Tanya Morgan's Von Pea and Donwill--and ask them to talk about their old temp-job blues. Their wretched stories are below.

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YYYYYOOOOOOOO!

Fresh from a triumphant Highline Ballroom show Tuesday night, avowed Brooklyn gentrification adversary Joell Ortiz teams up with Atlanta rapper Playboy Tre, whose Liquor Store Mascot was one of the best mixtapes of 2009, and who is better at saying the word MAAAAAAAN than anyone on earth. Pretty fantastic Isley Brothers sample on "Work" (get it here), wherein the word "recession" just rolls off Ortiz' tongue. MAAAAAAAAN indeed.

Possibly more people onstage than in the crowd here.

Joell Ortiz/Jay Electronica
Highline Ballroom
Tuesday, June 30

After basically booing both CyHi Da Prynce (who I--and I guess only I--actually like) and Big Krit off the stage, an extra hard NYC crowd made it clear that they weren't going to make it easy for any newcomers last night at the Highline Ballroom.

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Sade media-blitz week is winding down (much to David Letterman's dismay) -- looks like her Soldier of Love, despite its rampant iciness, will top next week's Billboard chart with ease. It's nice to have something/someone we can all agree on. With that in mind. our arch-enemies over at Vulture corralled an impressive roster of hip-hop luminaries (Missy Elliott, the Clipse Boys, Rakim, Keri Hilson, etc.) to wax rhapsodic on our regal heroine, a fine idea that buzzes along cheerfully until you get to Joell Ortiz:

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