With the amount of features here, it feels like a No Limit album that always had a large amount of verses from others than the primary one. The album art is terrible and some of the skits attached to the end of songs fit that theme feeling like something from the mind of a 12 year old boy.
The opener, 'More Dangerous', samples 'Warning' by The Notorious B.I.G. and is helped by Busta's energy on the hook. 'Future Sport', with Redman kicking the song off, is hard not to bop the head to and with Joe Hooker's chorus, it feels a little like some of the songs he was on on Black Rob's debut. 'Play Around' feels even more like them. I'm surprised Hooker was a go to for Diddy to get on hooks for a while. He isn't a great singer. 'Girlfriend', 'Looking for a Lady', 'Everything', and to a lesser extent, 'Chicken Heads', provide some R&B/pop rap feels.
'4 My Niggaz' is the song that caught my attention most on the first listen. The samples from 'Trans-Europe Express' by Kraftwerk, 'Al-Naafiysh' by Hashim and 'Computer Game' by Yellow Magic Orchestra make it sound original and like nothing else on the album. If only the hook wasn't lazy.
I spun this a few times and there isn't anything that is hard to listen to. There is nothing Lil' Cease does as a rapper that makes him stand out. There are many features, but to be fair, particularly for the second half of the album, many are just used on the chorus. Much of the production, that is very sample heavy, is hard to dislike.
Beats: ★★★
Rapping/Bars: ★★☆
Hooks: ★★☆
Best Tracks: More Dangerous, Future Sport, Looking for a Lady, 4 My Niggaz, Don't Stop, Everything
I'm surprised this has been so well received. A number of the songs sound the same. It's what sound like, soul samples, over a weak drum beat on an 8 bar loop. There are no hooks. There is minimal playing with flows. If you love Ransom's rapping, you'll like this, but I'll never go back to this.
At only 33 minutes, this flies by. It's half an hour of no-nonsense rhymes with hard east coast beats. One of my biggest problems though is Meth's almost hashtag/punchline style of rapping.
For example, here is some of 'Switch Sides' -
"Don't get yourself popped tryna trigger me
Bop you in your head, this where the buck stop; literally
Buck shots, what the blood clot? Watch the picking knee
If he flee, stop him with a leg shot, pick a knee
Chest shot to make your chess move, Bobby Fisher me
Get assassinated, tryna run? Bobby Kennedy
Keep that same energy, poison in my pen
What's the penalty? My life behind these bars, ain't no clemency"
I've always rated Method Man extremely highly, and this isn't a criticism I remember having about him before, but the style gets annoying here. Another example is when one of the featuring artists raps "aqua" and then says "water" afterwards... It's an easy listen given the short runtime, short track lengths, and the consistent quality of the tracks, but there isn't much if anything here to go back to.
Beats: ★★★
Rapping/Bars: ★★★☆
Hooks: ★★★
Best Tracks: Stop Crying, Butterfly Effect, Live From the Meth Lab, Switch Sides, Find God
For all of the garbage sitcoms that run for years and years it amazes me that this only lasted 13 episodes. The four main characters, who carpool to work each day, have great chemistry, each with very different lives with their own unique set of problems and personalities. Laird, played by Jerry O'Connell, is the pick of them as a shallow, insecure, womanising, dentist. The secondary characters, like the eccentric Marmaduke, (one of the character's sons), are also a laugh and others play their role well. There were people involved in the show with links to Arrested Development and it does share some of that quirky and unique humour. Thankfully as well, there is no laugh track. I put one person onto this show and they 'binged' it all one episode after the other.
Case has said he prefers this album (with the next 'Open Letter' being his favourite) as he had more creative control over it, but I prefer his debut. There aren't the highlights here that his others have.
Best Tracks: Happily Ever After, Faded Pictures, Another Minute