Lil Hawk – Heart of a Rida is one of the many unreleased albums from Lil Hawk that never got released. Lil Hawk – Heart of a Rida was originally supposed to be released on the date of October 4, 2018 (10-4-18), which was the 40th anniversary of Lil Hawk. However this did not happen for whatever reason. Now Upset Records confirmed the album got pushed back and remains unreleased to this day. However they did release a single for the album called Writaz Block on the date of October 4 2019 (10-4-19) to generate buzz for the album and leave something to hold the fans over for. The album included songs such as Eyez of a Hawk, N Tha Hood, Return of the Red Ridah, and The Return of the Gangsta Shit.

The Heart of a Rida album is a collection of tracks that were recorded during his time as a solo artist and during his time signed onto Dangerous Records which was 1994-1999. Some of those tracks were recorded from 1994-1999 before Lil Hawk caught his murder case which landed him in jail on April of 1999. Most of these tracks were recorded from 1994-2014.

Some of the sound and production is not up top notch thrifty state-of-the-art recording standards. Lil Hawk did record some tracks on a 4-track cassette recorder connected to a mono speaker which is why the vocals are lower than the music on some tracks. The tracks recorded on a 4-track cassette recorder were recorded in the 1990s from 1994 to 1999. Some older tracks are recorded with new musical styles with a fresh updated sound and filtered production.

Ironically Tweedy Bird Loc and Dangerous Records had nothing to do with this release nor was the album released by Dangerous Records. Despite Tweedy Bird Loc, J Stank, Leroy Dukes, QLuso, and Ronnie Ron producing some of the tracks, neither parties or producers involved had any say in the matter of whether or not the Heart of a Rida album would be released or not. Just to set the record straight, Dangerous Records had nothing to do with this album.

Heart of a Rida is a 5/5* album! Lil Hawk the Inglewood legend returns with the real gangsta shit on this album. The album has that classic Dangerous Records sound on top of that new school rap school. However most of the tracks retain a new school rap sound rather than the classic Dangerous Records sound Lil Hawk fans among others would expect to hear. The old school rap sound suites Lil Hawk best.

The Return of the Gangsta Shit is not a new song. The song is a super old slapper Lil Hawk recorded before he was sentenced to prison. The song has dope lyrics such as “I’m the dopest/So focus your eyes on me”. This song was originally supposed to be on his Red Pages album as a bonus track but was saved for this album for some reason.

Red Rida is a self-explanatory track about Lil Hawk Red Riding Hood himself. Lil Hawk gets self-explanatory and autobiographical on Red Rida. Red Rida was a track recorded for the 1997 album Lil Hawk Red Riding Hood. The track was not recorded at the Dangerous Records studios Ronnie Ron once owned. Lil Hawk recorded the vocals for Red Rida at his house. The music was later added professionally at a state of the art studio. Imagine if real G’s like Lil Hawk were out on the streets right now bringing the real shit. These fake gangsters and wack rappers couldn’t stand up!

Writaz Block was a single released something to hold the fans over for before the album gets released. Or if the album gets released in this case.

I rate this album 5/5*****!