Hip-Hop Sequel Packs Power

Astonishing. Not only is this sequel to JOB: The Hip-Hop Musical better than the original, which was pretty damn amazing in itself, but it's also a completely different animal that magically manages, unlike so many of its Hollywood equivalents, to blend the first story into something wholly new.

Jerome Saibil and Eli Batalion could not have worked harder to perfect their unique take on hip-hop storytelling, which takes the driving rhythms and syncopations of inner-city music and marries them beautifully to the art of theatre. Their capacity for scripting a blizzard of overlapping and repeating phrases is matched by equal originality in music-making, and a strict choreography as exhausting to watch as it must be to perform.

The first JOB ended with MC Abel (Batalion) shot by Saibil's MC Cain. Now Abel exists in a moment between the two bullets that killed him, and while psychotic Cain continues to stalk him, Abel embarks on a Nietzschean journey beyond God. It's fast, loud, profound, funny, strange and absolutely flawless. See JOB II to be reminded of the beauty to be found even within the violence of gangsta rap.

— Peter Birnie