Mike Shabb Sewaside IV Review: Stream, Tracklist & Best Beats

The Evolution of Mike Shabb and the Sewaside Legacy

Emerging in the spring of 2018 off his full-length debut Northwave, Mike Shabb has steadily built his world from the floor up, operating through his label Near Mint. According to coverage, his catalog includes extended plays, mixtapes, and projects like Hood Olympics, Sewaside III, Shabb Van Gogh, Fight the Power!, Vrai Rap Keb!, the Drega33-produced Lost Tapes, and Maple Flavored. Beyond his own solo work, his reputation expanded significantly when he engineered Boldy James’s fifth album, Fair Exchange No Robbery, produced “Switches on Everything” for Westside Gunn’s Hitler Wheres Hermes X, and enlisted his mentor Nicholas Craven to fully produce his fifth EP, Shadow Moses. While his third studio album, Sewaside III, was longlisted for the Polaris Music Prize, the release of Sewaside IV in August 2026 proved many wrong who thought the saga was concluded, delivering what reviewers consider the finest chapter yet.

Production Masterclass: Filling Negative Space with ’90s Nostalgia

Musically, Sewaside IV draws heavy inspiration from The Bomb Squad, matching the production ethos of projects like C-Doc’s Black Sky Over the Projects: Apartment 2025. Shabb’s ear for dub, jazz, and funk translates into an expansive sonic landscape over 21 tracks. The album opens with the “Fiya Fi Dat!” intro before transitioning into “Montreal!”, which begins with a soulfully jazzy ode to the city that made him. Tracks like “Conehead!” utilize funky guitar plucks, keys channel classic East Coast production reminiscent of “4,3,2,1” on “85.5FM”, and reverbed wails echo the energy of “Leflaur Leflah!”. Additional cuts like “1,2,1,2” reference Muhammad Ali’s famous motto, while “Tell ‘Em Again” dips into reggae vibes, sending love to family in New York. Throughout the project, Shabb balances this festive, dusty-drum production with dark realism.

Weaving Personal History and Fatalistic Street Narratives

The writing on Sewaside IV dives deep into personal trauma and harsh realities tied to the 8500 block of East Montreal. Over soul samples on “Flowers!”, Shabb reflects on his upbringing, recounting how his mother worked the night shift and skipped meals so he could wear nice shoes, even teaching him how to fight while his father was absent. He details how he left school at 17, packed his bags for Montreal, and faced profound hardships, including his mother’s battle with breast cancer and his father’s death. Street life looms large across the tracklist. On “Montreal!”, he asserts: The bottom line is I’m a Crip with no deal/So if my music don’t sell, I’ma rob and steal/Ain’t taking orders from nobody, fuck a job for real. On “Jack Mode!”, he notes that it ain’t about if you rich or broke/My whole neighborhood survive on hookers and dealers and dope. Later, on “Reminisce!”, he reflects: This ain’t an image, this really me/I learned from drug dealers, killers, and legit niggas/Businessman, my cousin made me who I am.

Modern Collaborations and Experimental Missteps

While the sonic foundation looks back to Duck Down Music Inc.’s run three decades prior, Shabb keeps the collaborators strictly contemporary. Guest appearances from MIKE, ANKHLEJOHN, Obijuan, and Rvlr Magz bridge the gap between golden-era reverence and modern underground rap. On “Dontsweatit!”, Shabb and MIKE trade bars about walking through their own shadows, featuring lines that bring things squarely into the present digital age, such as I know niggas sellin’ guns and bricks on Telegram. Not every sonic gamble hits the mark, however. On “Disco Duck III”—continuing a trilogy started on Hood Olympics and bridged by Shabb Van Gogh—his fast-paced delivery over drum’n’bass percussion occasionally loses its footing, proving that high-concept experimentation carries inherent risks. Even so, Sewaside IV succeeds by treating the 1990s as a launchpad rather than a museum piece, proving that an artist shaped by a different decade can still capture its heartbeat entirely.