Maino: King of the City

Keeping it gully is so important to Brooklyn rapper Maino that on “Paper Gangster” he actually says, “you rap / that ain’t that hard to do.” It sort of begs the question why he does it at all. But Maino does rap pretty well on his new mixtape, King of the City, relying on a concise, battle-friendly style, heavy on repetitive rhymes and tailor-made for anthems like “Stomp” with Lil Kim and “Thug Music”. King also includes topical tracks like “Wishing on a Star”, in which he speaks to his parents, and on the club ready “Hell No”, with Scott Storch providing yet another bootleg “Lean Back” beat.