Here at the Fat Lace HQ we don’t have much love for That Rapist 2pac. Okay, we might secretly bump ‘Pour Out A Little Liquor’ and ‘2 Of Americaz Most Wanted’ (the latter mainly because of Snoop doing his best Melle Mel impression) when nobody is around, but the man was a confused buffoon who ripped off Scarface, Mac Dre and Treach in equal measure but managed to somehow completely bypass the interesting nuances which made those rappers so good in the first place during his pre-prison days, who then went on to waste numerous great Dre and Daz beats which could’ve ensured the first Dogg Pound album was as good as ‘The Chronic’ or ‘Doggy Style’ during his tenure at Death Row. We also can’t stand his silly strained voice, any of his movies other than Juice and Above The Law, his gay nosestud, his homoerotic fans, and the items of the Makavelli Brand clothing range currently cluttering up any TK Maxx store we’ve been in over the last 5 years. What, no takers for those lime green and canary yellow patent leather bootleg AF1s or them XXXL knee-pocket jeans with his face screenprinted across the arse?

‘Me Against The World’ is usually lauded as the album of his which even us hardened ‘Pac Hataz have a grudging respect for, but we ain’t tryna hear that shit here at Fat Lace. ‘Dear Mama’ simultaneously makes us hate our respective ma dukes and De La’s WRMS interludes, ‘So Many Tears’ and ‘Death Around The Corner’ are decent Scarface songs with a 5th rate Brad Jordan doing kareoke over them instead, the 2 joints Easy Mo Bee did really should’ve gone to Biggie or even Big Scoob, and the rest isn’t even worth wasting any more words on because we’re listening to ‘Cross ‘Em Out And Put A K’ by Westside Connection right now and that shit has got us in the zone, son.

So, we’ll leave you to also point out his annoying insistence on rhyming drink Hennessey/ride on our enemies more times than JVC Force mentioned that they were the group who made Strong Island on their second album, as we throw up dubs to Westside Connection and sip on some wild nettle tea we’re using as part of our post-Xmas detox.

Underrated:  Slick Rick – Behind Bars

Def Jam done fucked up too many times with some of their baffling decisions over the years, but we still breath an occasional sigh of release that they didn’t get Ricky D to do an X-Raided – recording an album with him rapping over the phone from the bing – and instead waited until he managed to secure a few days of work release to herd him into the studio to lay down vocals for the ‘Behind Bars’ album when all he probably wanted to do was get blowjobs from his wifey and sink a few tins while giving thanks that his arse was safe from potential fellow rapists for a few days.

The long-awaited Doug E. Fresh re-connection ‘Sittin’ In My Car’ was the main single and every time you listen to it all you can think is : damn, why didn’t someone get these two to do an album together at some point?; with its cod reggae synth backdrop and use of whistling ‘A Love That’s True Part 1’ should have been an utter abomination or, worse still, a Lily Allen backing track, but it somehow works and comes off as a more mature take on ‘Treat Her Like A Prostitute’ with the grown-up Ricky lamenting he’s not given up on finding a sweetheart even though all he ever seems to meet are skanks, crazies, golddiggers and junkies; ‘Cuz It’s Wrong ’ is an Easy Mo Bee thumper with a sax sample which just epitomises everything good about 1993/1994 boom-bap; and we even got Large Pro’s classic remix of ‘It’s A Boy’ right at the end before the decent Dum Ditty Dum remix of ‘Behind Bars’ with Warren G.

Alright, it’s probably Rick’s least essential album, but there’s a killer EP in here with a little fine tuning, and we’ll take a Slick Rick album with 5 good songs on it over the in-prison album of a derivative rapist in a bandana all day, every day.

Words by The Martorialist

Underhated : Pretty much any Nas album made since the year 2000

Okay, Stillmatic isn’t a bad album (though Ether will always be the most overrated dis track in the history of rap : a string of jokes and puns about poofs which Jim Davidson would’ve rejected for being too obvious over a beat which sounds like one of the filler tracks from McGruff’s 1998 album) with the excellent opening combo of Stillmatic Intro and You’re Da Man and The Lost Tapes is worth owning for No Ideas Original alone so we’ll grant those 2 a pass into the hallowed halls of our record collection but the rest of Nasir’s catalogue since the turn of the milennium?

If you’ve got Made You Look, Get Down, I Can, Thief’s Theme and Virgo on 12″ then you don’t need to own God’s Son and Street’s Disciple; Just typing the word Nastradamus sends shivers up our spine and into the drums of our ears so we don’t want to even spend a milisecond reconsidering that steaming pile of confused shite, and Hip Hop Is Dead and Untitled are two of the most appalling examples of muddled gimmicky masquerading as concept albums in any genre of music, the sound of a man who completely ran out of ideas 4 or 5 years ago over beats so lumpen that they’re capable of inducing lead poisoning in listeners.

Nas – Thugz Mansion

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And Thugz Mansion (NY) may just be the worst rap song ever made.

Underrated : AZ – A.W.O.L

Blighted throughout the first ten years of his career by albums which ranged from patchy to downright atrocious, AZ finally came good after the debacle of his would-be swan song album Final Call getting leaked to the internet and ripped apart in reviews at least 6 months before its scheduled release date by dropping the hastily recorded but excellent A.W.O.L album in its place a year later in 2005.

As a rapper who’s always lived and died on his beat selection, AZ’s scramble to put an album out resulted in him enlisting some dependable help : Primo hooked up a banger in The Come-Up; the then ever-dependable Heatmakerz cooked up a couple of sure-shots including Never Change; Emile provided a simple but effective looping of Gangbusters from the Wild Style soundtrack for AZ, Raekwon and Ghostface to deliver a hometown anthem; Lil’ Fame jacked Top Billin’ and rejigged it into a modern NY stomper; the late Disco D submitted the lush City Of God; and relatively unknown up-and-comers Frado and MoSS came with heat on Can’t Stop and Envious, respectively.

Naturally, it’s not without its problems : Slick Rick disappeared from the song Bedtime Story even though official Koch press releases had him listed as appearing on it, there’s a couple of utter duds and  Serious with Nas didn’t make the final tracklisting thus making it one of the best officially unreleased tracks this decade, but the inclusion of the 3 best tracks from the aborted Final Call album taped on into a 9 minute mix at the conclusion of the album make up for these minor niggles and, all things considered, A.W.O.L stands up as one of the better albums the east coast has offered up during the last 5 years. Even Robbie Unkut quite liked this one and he usually doesn’t like anything made after 1997 which doesn’t feature Tragedy Khadafi, various members of Money Boss Players and a sample of Nautilus.

AZ – Never Change

02-az-never_change

Underhated:

Black Moon – Enta Da Stage

Let’s be honest here : beyond the classics like Who Got The Props, Enta Da Stage, I Gotcha Opin and How Many MC’s this has always been a fairly dismal record, hence the amount of superior remixes it spawned. There’s no shame in that – plenty of albums we cherish only have a handful of hot tunes nestled in between a whole heap of flotsam and jetsam yet, puzzlingly, Enta Da Stage has somehow elevated itself above (far superior) cult favorites like Akinyele’s Vagina Diner into the canon of genre-defining 1993 classics which returned NY to rude health following the dominance of Cube, Dre and Death Row alongside Midnight Marauders, 36 Chambers, Buhloone Mind State and Return Of The Boom Bap.

There is a grain of truth to this : where Doggy Style pounds with technocolour L.A brilliance, Enta Da Stage is a tinny sludgefest which sounds as if it were recorded somewhere deep within an abandoned train Brooklyn tunnel with a dictaphone. And this is considered a good thing why exactly? 36 Chambers has a similar raw lo-fi aesthetic but the difference is that still bumps something fierce, is shot through with a sense of urgency and is full of great songs. Enta Da Stage, on the other hand, is a hodgepodge of generic shouted hooks and muddy jazzy beats which couldn’t be more sluggish unless it were a post-xmas Fat Joe bowel movement beyond the 4 standout tracks.

Perspective, people. 3 superb singles and a stellar title track does not a New York classic make and, honestly, if you spent 1993 listening to dreck like Make Munne and Powerful Impak at the expense of Doggy Style, vintage Cube like Check Yo Self remix and Ghetto Bird or Above The Law’s magnificent Black Superman then please take this oppurtunity to hang your head in shame.

Underrated:

Big Daddy Kane – Looks Like A Job For…

Okay, okay. So you absolutely insist on spunking over 1993 albums with only a handful of great tracks made by Brooklyn rappers. Fine. Then why not heap praise on the only BDK album post-1989 any self respecting rap nerd needs to own instead of the dodgy Black Moon debut? True, that shit remix of the superlative ‘Nuff Respect Due is the definition of pointless but Rest In Peace and Chocolate City with Scoob ‘n’ Scrap, the best track the flat-topped Brooklyn triumvirate did together, are up there with Kane’s most distinguished moments.

Lyrically, Kane is every bit as stylish here as he was in his golden-era pomp and you imagine those Brooklyn-born BDK accolytes Christopher Wallace and Shawn Carter were studying closely when this dropped that summer. While Easy Mo Bee (who, at his best, was Marley’s real successor) is only credited with having produced 3 songs on here, it’s fairly obvious he was behind the boards for tracks Kane himself took credit for, such as the highlight The Beef Is One, and it’s that and the aforementioned Rest In Peace which you imagine had Biggie knocking on Mo Bee’s door begging him for more-of-the-same when enlisting him to helm Ready To Die.

How U Get A Record Deal is the most known cut and was a pleasant if slightly generic thumper (remember : Dwyck was still hittin’ at this point and How U.. sounds positively pedestrian in comparison) and the rest of the album was a so-so affair but here’s the 4 songs we think make this album a bargain bin must-have for any self-respecting BDK fan and worth reappraisal if you want to drool over patchy Big Apple albums containing a mere grip of brilliance from the ‘93 era.

There’s a theory which suggests even the most shitty dullard of a rapper is tolerable over good production. It’s a theory we subscribe to every time we somehow manage to forget that Lil’ Dap sounds like Kermit The Frog’s nephew Robyn each time we listen to Supa Star (don’t get it twisted, though, we’ll always have love for Melachi The Nutcracker). Yet somehow even a big budget producer dream team like Dre, Timbaland, ‘Yeezy, Just Blaze, Hi-Tek and Buckwild can’t turn Game’s debut into a banger.

Indeed, the post-The Black Album superstar producer team turns out to be the main problem – For all the brouhaha about Game resurrecting the West coast it’s an album which sounds curiously NY-centric with one of the only West Coast sounding beats being by, of all people, Hi-Tek. While there are some fine moments here the production completely overshadows the plastic faux pasing revisionist namedropping ramble-rappin’ of Game and on the lesser hot tracks (including some utterly subpar efforts by Dre, Just Blaze and a trademark Eminem clunker) Game’s persona is just so generic, inauthentic and desperate to insert himself into the rap pantheon that he quickly grates over average production. Add in the token phoned-in guest spots by Eminem, Snoop, Busta and Mary J. Blige and dated-a-week-after-it’s-release bulletproof G-Unit soldier solidarity and you have an all-over-the-shop album bereft of any sort of heart or character. How We Do surely counts as one of the blandest G-Unit singles to date. No mean feat.

Sure, Hate It Or Love It was one of the best singles of ‘05 (albeit, one where 50 steals the show) and only a true curmudgeon could deny Westside Story, Put It On The Game or that sublime lyric in Dreams about Eazy E’s jheri curl drippin’ on Ronald Reagan’s shoes but beyond them there’s little here to sink your teeth into and, thus, it ends up a hollow debut album with very little replay value. Sometimes bigger really isn’t better.

Underrated : The Jacka – The Jack Artist

While Compton native Game made the most noise and the post-Mac Dre hyphy movement generated the most discussion, elsewhere in the Bay Area in 2005 Mob Figaz member The Jacka was quietly getting on with business creating some real west coast gangsta rap with an NY influence on his 2nd solo release The Jack Artist. Almost entirely produced by in-house producer Rob Lo and, other than brief verses by Cormega, Yukmouth and Keak Da Sneak, with guest features kept to purely Mob Figaz members, affiliates and weed-carriers this is the complete antithesis of Game’s bloated big budget feature filled debut album.

The Jacka ft. Husalah – Blind World

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The Jacka ft. Fed X – Standing By Starz

04-standing-by-starz-mp3

A really good gangsta rap album should be a little world full of contradictory impulses you can lose yourself in and The Jack Artist succeeds in this entirely due to Rob Lo crafting a low-budget but lush bed of soul samples underpinned by trademark Bay Area trunk-friendly basslines with Jacka trying to make sense of his environment as a wistful ex-crack dealing devout muslim perennially caught in a hustle between the two worlds. Hardly an original concept, you might sneer, but Jacka’s nation of Islam affiliation gives him extra depth to carry the introspective thug in the dope game role off as successfully as the heavyweights of the genre (think : UGK, Cormega, Z-Ro, Beanie Sigel, Freeway) and the album feels like a journey starting with the melancholy Never Blink, taking in the likes of Iller Clip, Standing By Starz, Feel This Clip and Blind World before ending with the uplifting triumvirate of Won’t Break Me, Kuran and the original solo version of Barney (More Crime).

The Jacka – Barney (More Crime)/Feel This Clip

Of course, it’s a modern rap album so it’s not perfect – at 19 tracks it’s overlong with inevitable filler and you’ll occassionally find yourself wishing Fed X or the hugely charismatic Husalah were in the studio that day instead during verses by J. Stylin’ or Lil’ Ric but these are minor complaints on such a strong set and it’s the juxaposition of the almost Heatmakerz-ish soul sampling atop the customary deep bass of older Mob Figaz releases which give The Jack Artist a unique feel. Proof that the equation of good rapper plus good producer finely crafting their platter often equals much better music.

Who the hell knew that Wordsworth had a good LP in him? Not us. After hearing the first few outings from Punch & Words, his tag team with Punchline, on the likes of ‘Lyricist Lounge’, we’d already dismissed him and his buddy as a pair of puddle-shallow rhymers. They seemed to specialise in those quotables you can see coming a mile off, with a pause for effect afterwards rather like that dreadful ‘Kill at will, solid water, Ice Cube’ explanation line fom Jay-Z. It seemed smug. Well, ‘Mirror Music’ is the opposite of that. It’s a mature, intelligent rap album that deals with relationships, community, growing up and more besides. Yeah, we know we adore ignorant rap music, but we can get down to something more soulful too, and this has soul in spades. The production is distinctly 2nd or 3rd tier – Ayatollah, Sebb, Oddisee, Curt Gowdy – but most of them deliver fine work, tracks rinsed with soul loops like a more kinetic 9th Wonder, all idealfor underpinning Wordsworth’s unusually honest lyrics. Unsurprisingly, the only lull comes when Punchline arrives on the scene for ‘Not Fair’. Where’s your great solo album, Punchy? Yeah, thought so…

Wordsworth – Guardian Angel
11-guardian-angel

Wordsworth – Be A Man
05-be-a-man

Underhated: Kool G Rap & DJ Polo – Live and Let Die

Once, we had nothing but love for the Kool Genius of Rap. That was during his first two LP’s, two for two on classic status. The lisping king of speed rhyming over dope production could do no wrong. Until, that is, he decided he was going to be a crime rhymer. G Rap seems to have taken the praise for ‘Streets of New York’ the wrong way. We were all impressed by it as a moving homage to a troubled city sitting on an album of freestyle frenzy. He seems to have taken it as ‘we like it when you rap about crime’ because that’s all he’s done ever since, to miserable effect. This album has its moments, but whoever told him to (or failed to dissade him from) record ‘Still Wanted Dead or Alive’ needs garotting. That shit is weak in comparison. Sir Jinx offers nice beats, but G Rap’s dreadful crime narratives make you realise how good Ice Cube was at the time. As G Rap segued from a brag rapper with a sideline in stories to a storyteller with an occasional sideline in brag rapping, we stopped listening. Or rather, we kept listening in anguish. We’re glad his LP on Rawkus didn’t see the light of day – it was probably shit, just like ‘Roots of Evil’, ‘The Giancana Story’ and, for heaven’s sake, ‘Click of Respect’. We realise most 80’s rappers fade, but he’d faded by this, his 3rd, mysteriously underhated LP. Listen, Nathaniel Wilson: you’re not Italian, and you’re not in the Mafia. Now get into the Fat Lace time machine – Large Professor and Ant Live are waiting inside for you…

Kool G Rap & DJ Polo – Still Wanted Dead or Alive
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Kool G Rap & DJ Polo – Train Robbery
kool-g-rap-dj-polo-live-and-let-die-06-train-robbery

Lil’ Wayne – The Carter 3

Look, it’s great that any rapper can sell 1.5 million in this internet ravaged climate, and we all secretly love how the helium voiced pygmy with braids from Cash Money has transformed himself into the heir apparent to Andre 3000’s throne, brushing aside rumors of ghostwriting and being bummed by Baby along the way, if only to stop Nas making more convoluted concept albums on the state of da kulcha, but this just isn’t a very good album when you get down to the nitty gritty.

Easily the least effective installment of the The Carter trilogy of albums, for a rapper bursting with so much personality – no mean feat when you consider he’s a barely comatose syrup sucking mong most of the time – this album is so formulaic it literally could be the newest release by any of the 4 or 5 rappers who can still just about crawl to platinum status and that just isn’t good enough for the rapper who transfixed us with his digestive system obsessed raps about how ‘Gremlins’ was his favourite movie as an alien child and who was on fire (no Hot Boys) from 2004 – 2007.

Crucially, it lacks that N.O funk we’re accustomed to. Kanye-helmed tracks like ‘Let The Beat Build’ are fine with us, but shouldn’t the backbone of a Lil’ Wayne album sound a teensy bit, well, southern? And does a rapper whose voice has been sampled to startling effect on hooks by everyone from Dipset to Trae and who Biz/ODB-ed it up himself on hooks for other people on tracks like ‘Duffel Bag Boy’ and ‘Hello Brooklyn 2.0′ really need tacky phoned in hooks from Babyface, T-Pain, Robin Thicke and Bobby Valentino? Shouldn’t Weezy be setting the trends instead of following already tired traditions? And where’s Birdman, All $tar, promising Young Money up and comers like Mack Maine and the Cash Money in-house producers?

This’ll be our last word on this one. We’re not complete curmudgeons, so we’ll admit ‘A Milli’ is some classic shit and we can’t hate the triumphant irony of a Lil’ Wayne and Swizz Beats collaboration being a conceptual track about the art of mceeing over a David Axelrod sample, but we’ve nearly forgotten this album already and, really, Dwayne just be yourself next time around, okay?

Lil’ Wayne feat. Bobby Valentino – Mrs Officer
lil_wayne-mrs_officer_feat_bobby_valentino

Underrated

BG – Chopper City In The Ghetto

Back then it was all about Juve and right now the world belongs to Weezy, but B.Gizzle’s 1999 set is, undoubtedly, the finest album from the Cash Money roster and the album which best demonstrates the Cash Money Records raison d’être: a variety of weird, high-pitched snarled or lisped voices which make Pimp C sound like Billy Danze, ostentatiously ig’nant bragging, garish nouveau-riche Pen & Pixel covers, the sort of back and forth interplay between rappers on posse tracks which could only exist between friends who’ve grown up together (and which, sadly, no longer exists in the modern age where posse tracks are recorded via verses sent by UPS or email) and the all important crisp ricocheting electro-funk of Mannie Fresh.

Juvenile’s ‘400 Degreez’ is often trumpeted as being the defining vintage Cash Money Records opus, but it’s a slightly flabby affair which often leads you to scramble for the fast foward button, whereas ‘Chopper City In The Ghetto’, while weighing in at 16 tracks, feels surprisingly lean as it bumps from the opener ‘Trigga Play’ to the lush ‘Cash Money Roll’ to the closing melancholy double-punch of ‘Uptown My Home’ and ‘Bout My Paper’. You’ll no doubt know the two hits, ‘Cash Money Is An Army’ and ‘Bling Bling’, which are two of the finest singles of the late 90’s, but beyond them it’s a non-stop slew of pinging-and-zinging production from the auteur/bounce overload Mannie Fresh with that bizarre array of voices darting in and out of each other over the top on the likes of ‘Dog Ass’, ‘Knock Out’ and ‘Niggaz In Trouble’.

While B.G lacks the commanding rasp of Juvenile or the high pitched hyperactive bounce of Wayne, his odd nasal lispy tone has a cold world weariness to it and it’s when the pizzazz of Cash Money Records American dream starts to crack, revealing the struggle of growing up in the N.O as a child rapper prodigy of the Williams Brothers’ heinous empire and the hints of the drug addictions which would break up the crew within a year or so, that B.G displays some depth by getting his Brad Jordan on with solo tracks like ‘Real Niggaz’, ‘Thug’n’ and ‘Hard Times’, making sure he’s the star of his own show and which are the highlights of a neglected southern classic which deserves to be jocked as hard as, say, ‘Ridin’ Dirty’ by UGK.

Not bad for an album by an 18 year old smackhead and his crew of drug addled buddies, then. Proof that we should have ignored Zammo and the cast of ‘Grange Hill’ when they urged us to ‘Just Say No’ and that Ice Cube was right all along when he stated “We don’t say no, we’re too busy saying YEEEAAAAHHHHH”.

B.G. – Real Niggaz
B.G. Real Niggaz

B.G. – Uptown My Home
B.G. – Uptown My Home

Underhated: Kool G Rap – 4, 5, 6

Think of Kool G. Rap’s career as being like the 110 metre hurdles. But instead of hurdles it’s all sharks. This motherfucker clears ‘em all every single time. The Kool Genius of Rap had already showed he might be past it with 1992’s ‘Live and Let Die’ LP, which was an ultimately fine but blatant attempt to ride some West Coast coattails, but this first solo effort confirmed our worst fears. What is it with legendary rappers with DJ’s who can’t really scratch and don’t really produce either? Rakim performed a similar trick with Eric B – split up with him and, rightly, accused him of doing nothing – and his career hasn’t been anywhere near as good since. We’re not sure DJ Polo, based on his solo career, can do anything at all, but at least G Rap was on his game when he was around. Here he’s starting to flounder although, compared to what he’s done since, it’s actually the best album ever. When did he go from being a dope rapper with a number of topics but, ultimately, a brag rapper, to being a crime rhymer? We know the game changes, but his tedious tales of guns, drugs and street warfare were interesting for about 1 verse in 1993. If we have to hear any more of his faux Italian trife life tales, we’re gonna start drowning it out with ‘The Polo Club’. We’re looking forward to any new Kool G Rap project as much as we want another Tragedy Khadafi LP. Here he’s still showing flashes – ‘Fast Life’ with Nas is a nice tag team, although not really comparable to the latter’s hook-ups with AZ, and ‘It’s A Shame’ enjoys a lush production from the short-lived Naughty Shorts. T-Ray and Dr. Butcher hit a few of the right notes too. ‘Take ‘Em To War’ is an ostensibly superb Axelrod-fest, but it’s hamstrung by a woeful verse from the perennially overrated spaz MF Grimm. Who told him he could open a track? B-1 slaughters him on this. Grimm’s still banging on about his ‘chance’ years later. Listen, you’re not as good as G Rap (even the rubbish G Rap we’ve got now), you’re not as good as Doom. You were lucky to be on their shits. Shut up. “Quantities of entities enter me evilly”? What kind of shit is that? Really shut up.

To be fair, in the vast range of awful G Rap LP’s, this isn’t among the worst. It’s short. Nas and B-1 are good on it. However, it contains all the seeds of what would make him such a dismal artist later – crime obsession, second rate guests (MF Grimm), contemporary production picked from the second or third tier. It’s quite a fall from having prime Marley or Extra P behind the boards to getting Naughty Shorts to handle your shit.

Acceptable:
Kool G. Rap – For Da Brothaz
for da brothaz

Unacceptable:
Kool G. Rap – Ghetto Knows
ghetto knows

Underated: Rated X – And Then Came…

Eagle-eyed vets will know we bigged this album up back in the ‘old media’ days. So we don’t need to say too much about this. To summarise: This is the only good thing they ever did (although we also recommend the 3 12″s this album gave birth to). They seem to have an unhealthy obsession with sampling breaks you’ve heard a thousand times before. We can’t believe it took until 1990 for the ‘Law of Groovity’ to be discovered, but these guys did it – credit where it’s due. They’re not the world’s best MC’s. But that doesn’t matter because, as we’ve said before, you can’t fight the feeling. And that feeling is that, indisputably, this is better than Kool G. Rap’s ‘4, 5, 6′. It’s also better than lots of other things, namely: Either of Biggie’s LP. All of Jay Z’s LP’s. Anything the rapist Tupac ever did. End of.

Acceptable all the way:
Rated X – Swift Lift Vocalist
swift lift vocalist

Rated X – Be Cool To Your Girl
be cool

Rated X – Movin’ On Up
movin on up

Underhated: Mos Def – Black on Both Sides

We could just precis our thoughts on this by quoting what most of the Fat Lace Crew refer to this album as: Wack on Both Sides. But as most modern music consumers don’t know what a ’side’ is, allow us to expand. We were pretty juiced for this LP after ‘Universal Magnetic’, which of course is awesome. Then Rawkus allowed us into the studio during the recording of this and we saw Mos noodling around with 88 Keys and we knew it was all going to go tits up. History proved us right. Occasionally, you hear fans opining, perhaps after throwing up all over ‘The New Danger’, that ‘Mos Def hasn’t made a good album since ‘Black on Both Sides’. That sentence is almost correct, but is entirely correct if you remove the last 5 words from it. It’s an LP that “will endure for many years” according to the official review at Amazon by Celine Wong. Or Celine Wrong as we’ll now be calling her (in addition to Celine ‘Dead’ Wrong and ‘The Wong Nigga to Fuck With’). Let’s be generous and look at the pluses: ‘Ms. Fat Booty’ is nice enough, but only because of Aretha. ‘New World Water’ is quite clever and well-produced. ‘Mathematics’ adds up. That’s it. It leaves an awful lot of filler, lots of which is on some misconceived mumbling soul bullshit. Rawkus, we know you’re reading this. Who told you ‘Umi Says’ was a good idea for a single? Frighteous. And as if that isn’t enough, he records it again on ‘Climb’. He might then have some good points to make on ‘Rock ‘N’ Roll’, but the fact that he chooses Fishbone over the Rolling Stones tells you absolutely everything you need to know. There’s Def and there’s deaf, and every good B-Boy should know the difference. Still, he was alright in ‘16 Blocks’, wasn’t he? The only good 16 he’s dropped in a long time…

Acceptable:
Mos Def – Mathematics
Mos Def – Mathematics

Unacceptable:
Mos Def – Umi Says
Mos Def Umi Says

Underrated: The Mind of Mannie Fresh

Mannie Fresh has been throwing it down since the 80’s, word to Gregory D, but he only started getting proper paper laying down tracks for the Cash Money Millionaires. His sound is almost a hybrid of early Timbaland with elements of early Miami hip-hop, but he’s distinctly his own guy. However, the guy who came up with the idea of an LP full of Mannie rhyming must have been the guy who thought ‘Umi Says’ would be a good single. Well, you’re right some of the time because, bizarrely, it works. Mannie isn’t really dropping any classic couplets here – there’s nothing you’d call a hip-hop quotable on the whole long-ass record. At one point he channels Method Man, rhyming “I came to show my chain, hardcore to the bling, let’s go inside where the bitches at”, which is immediately better than Meth, who rapped about the “astral plane”. Well, Meth, the astral plane doesn’t exist and the place where the bitches is at does, so Mannie wins that one. What makes this album so listenable is the big sound. It kicks into gear on the likeable opener ‘Conversation’ and never lets up. For those many people who like their modern hip-hop to subscribe to some ‘golden age’ template forged in 1987 or 1988, while hating on the South as if it sprung up in 2003, this type of sound arguably goes back further, to the kinds of tunes coming out of Miami in the mid 80’s. It’s fun, it’s about dancing, the lyrics are beyond simple. But when ‘Real Big’ kicks in, it’s over. ‘How We Ride’ is a little more heavyweight lyrically thanks to Bun B and David Banner, while Weezy is confined to two short but amusing tracks. The only attempt at depth comes on the mighty fine ‘Nothing Compares to Love’, which goes for epic and almost gets there. For those unconvinced, two more points. 1) There’s DJ cut-up track – you don’t get that from frickin’ Joell Ortiz. 2) ‘Chubby Boy’ is ridiculous. With a title like that, how could it not be? Even if you called a song ‘Chubby Boy’ and it was Saul Williams farting in a bubble bath, it’d still somehow be good. So, when you’re next flicking through the M’s, pull out Mannie, leave Mos where he is…

Acceptable all the way:
Mannie Fresh – Go Chubby Boy
Chubby Boy

Mannie Fresh – Real Big
Real Big

Mannie Fresh – Conversation ft. Tateeze
Conversation