KXNG Crooked has always been nice on the mic, but he’s not above paying respects to the greats who shaped his style. The Slaughterhouse MC formerly known as Crooked I just released a freestyle that would make Mobb Deep proud. Titled “Halfway Me,” the song is an homage to the Queensbridge duo’s “Shook Ones, Pt. II.” With its chorus line about “halfway crooks,” it is a thematic tribute over a beat that honors the Havoc-produced classic. The bars on this thing are just as noteworthy too.

“I move with some O.G. menaces / Crip-walking like O.T. Genasis,” the Circle Of Bosses head opens the track with. “Don’t sleep ’cause Long Beach infamous / Blow heat at the police witnesses / Don’t speak, we don’t need sentences / Both feat in the cold streets, pimp a h*e at the liquor store and we low-key / Yeah, ni**a rolled out a gigolo but we so deep.”

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Interestingly, Crooked had a short-lived beef with Prodigy when the Mobb MC was still in prison. A decade ago, in 2009, P took issue with Vibe magazine’s “Best Rapper Alive” feature, which mentioned Crooked. “Vibe says 920,000 people voted for it. I would personally b*tch-slap all 920,000 of these voters if given the opportunity,” Prodigy wrote in a letter from prison, which was subsequently posted online. “Who in the f*ck picked Crooked I, Flo Rida and Rich Boy? How did Vibe approve this?” Crooked, after seeing the letter, challenged Prodigy to a fight after he would get out of prison. The two would squash their differences shortly after Prodigy was released. KXNG Crooked would also later make an Instagram tribute post to Prodigy after learning of his passing.

The two also had the opportunity to appear on the same song, Masta Killa’s 2017 cut, “Real People.”

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“Halfway Me” is the second installment of KXNG Crooked’s revived “Hip Hop Weekly” series. In 2007, the artist who was then in a period between Death Row Records and the formation of Slaughterhouse fed the digital masses on sites and blogs. He did so with a series of bars named after the magazine that lasted until early 2008. That plethora of free music ultimately set the veteran MC on a course that would lead him to a Shady Records deal and the top real estate on the charts.

#BonusBeat: Last week, Crook paid respects to Reasonable Doubt-era JAY-Z with “96 GS”: