Having to wait an extra month than the US for this album to be in stores was strange given the international version has no extra tracks. I'm sure there is some reason but surely this does nothing but encourages piracy... Anyway, once acquired and given a spin or two I find it to be a good album, but the production on most of his others are more my thing. Lyrically it's good as usual, content and delivery wise, but a lot of the tracks don't seem to grab me as much as Nasir's past albums which limit its lifespan. I listened to the previous 'Street's Disciple' and his other albums for ages and play them more often than this one. In saying all this, it's better than much of what's released today and it's still quality from Nas, being consistent and having some great bangers such as 'Black Republican' and 'Money Over Bullshit'. Best Tracks: Money Over Bullshit, Black Republican, Blunt Ashes, Let There Be Light, Hold Down the Block, Can't Forget About You. Good Songs: Carry On Tradition, Where Are They Now, Hip-Hop Is Dead, Play on Playa, Still Dreaming, Hustlers Average Songs: Who Killed It, You Can't Kill Me (the music reminds me of an earlier song he did on an earlier LP...It's not coming to though), Not Going Back, Hope (not a big fan of acapellas - great with a beat behind it though). "1995, eleven years from the day, I'm in the record shop with choices to make. Illmatic on the top shelf, The Chronic on the left homie Wanna cop both but only got a twenty on me So f*** it, I stole both, spent the twenty on a dub sack" - The Game on 'Hustlers'.

With this being the trio's first album together for over a decade, while being excited about the new material as I'm a big fan, it was hard to anticipate anything too special from one of the better rap groups of the nineties. Specifically when their last album together is easily the one I play least out of their discography. And also that the two or three singles they have released have not been up too the old standard. However, 'Icons', the last album from Naughty without DJ Kay Gee was a pretty good effort. And it isn't like they have reunited as such, as they have been touring the globe all this time everywhere from Iraq to Australia. The title of this album really suits the type of hip hop they've made, as plenty of their best tracks, while many not fitting under the pop-rap heading were chorus based tracks and can get a crowd moving. One thing to mention here is that Vinnie has really taken a back seat. He is barely on any of these new tracks, and doesn't spit a verse. Treach is the better rapper, so it isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it is perhaps surprising. The album itself begins quite well demonstrating that Treach has not lost any of his skills throughout the years, and the opening three songs are fairly hard hip hop. If you've been keeping yourself up to date you would have probably heard tracks four to six before. The pop rap begins from 'Perfect Party' and stretches for three tracks. There is nothing outstanding here, but 'Name Game' is a nice uplifting kind of track, and is similar to 'I Know It's Like' a few tracks further on. 'Perfect Party' is the weakest of these three tracks despite it fittingly featuring one the best artists mainstream R&B has had over the past two decades. The founder of Naughty, Queen Latifah combines with her former proteges on the conscious 'God Love Us' which isn't bad pop rap. 'Guns and Butta' is the most gutta track on the album, and it would have been nice to hear Treach on this for another verse as opposed to the features. Treach's rhyme pattern on 'Ride' is great over another hard beat. The hook is uncreative, that can be said for a few tracks, but Treach hits the verses. 'Impeach the Planet' could be cited as one of the better tracks here - nice hard beat, but again like 'Guns and Butta' it would have been good to hear Treach for another verse. Again the hook on 'Doozit' is simplistic, "That's how we doozit", but it's another reasonable track to close out the new songs. Being a celebration of Naughty By Nature's 20 years (22 if you include 'Independent Leaders') in the game, the album concludes with five of Naughty's classic anthems. All of these tracks have been remastered and rerapped. Listening to these show the slight change in Treach and Vinnie's vocals twenty years later. In comparison to the originals 'Uptown Anthem' is quite similar. The rapping isn't as crisp on 'Hip Hop Hooray', although maybe you'll be able to understand the lyrics with less effort. I think MJ's vocals have been removed from 'O.P.P.' and have been resung by someone. 'Feel Me Flow' sounds as if the production has been taken down a notch - probably the worst re-recorded track here. Treach sounds really hungry on 'Everything's Gonna Be Alright', and is perhaps easier to comprehend in some of the fast portions of the song compared to the original. Again the piano sounds more crisp, but the beat is pretty much the same. Overall all of these songs don't offer too much new - for newcomers I guess. Overall, I like the new tracks, KayGee has done a good job on most of the beats making it a very easy album to listen to, and you can tell he has been messing with R&B a lot over the years, and Treach is still an absolute joy to hear. I can't say that they have rediscovered the secrets to making a classic anthem in 2011 though, with there not being a superb song on offer. It provides a good mixture between hip hop and pop rap, although maybe the pop rap will be a touch too poppy for some, with songs like 'God Is Us'/'Flags'/'Perfect Party', being more poppy than they have created previously. There is nothing sensational, but if you like Treach's style then the beats are good enough to get something out of this. Best Tracks: Naughty Nation, Throw It Up, I Gotta Lotta, Name Game (Remember), Impeach the Planet

This is an accurate recreation of the TV show, but it isn't without its flaws. Nothing is skippable, so you are forced to sit through the host's introductions every time which make each game last longer than it needs to. The answers it accepts are also sometimes wrong. For example, there was one game where the other team said 'television', only to receive a X. I then said 'movies', which brought up 'TV' on the board... It would've been better if they were able to make the host be someone real such as Steve Harvey, rather than the generic Buck McCoy.

Firstly, in no way is this better than Dawn of Justice (DOJ) (a film which I will defend), as the rating on some sites would suggest at the time of writing this. This follows on from that and spends the majority of the first half of the film reintroducing us to Wonder Woman, Batman, Superman's death/Louis Lane and introducing the new heroes: Aquaman, Cyborg and Flash. My thoughts with these kind of ensemble superhero films is that less is more. I'm not a fan of origin stories for well-established characters, but when you have three extra main characters brought in it takes time to familiarise them to the audience, and you also can't do it, well, justice. I guess they will be covered in more depth in their standalone feature films but it's kind of doing things back to front. The story is uninspiring but decent enough and the actors were well chosen for each hero. My favourite scene, I guess similar to Superman III, is when Superman kind of becomes the villain after he is resurrected and forgets who he is. The representation of the raw power he provides is missing from the other heroes and a welcome addition once he arrives. Why there aren't any members of the public around to witness this event is questionable though. What doesn't work here is the CGI that never seems to stop. If you had a problem with it in DOJ, then stay away from this one. I didn't see this in cinemas but it didn't look great at times. Furthermore, the villain, Steppenwolf, is too similar to what we got in DOJ and even Wonder Woman in a way. Like Doomsday, he isn't incredibly interesting. Did these writers see The Joker, or Bane, or even to a lesser extent, Lex, from recent DC films??? The reason the Batman films worked so well was that they were dark and 'realistic' but this film definitely loses those aspects of film, particularly the realism aspect. There is a feeling of déjà vu I had with this. It's as if Nolan's Batmans and DOJ are Burton's take on Batman, and this is almost Schumacher's. It feels very different. As referred to earlier, while Superman plays a bit part, in my opinion, he still adds a lot to the film. While (silly) people complained about the convoluted plot of DOJ, there aren't many secondary events or themes here, with little else going on with the characters aside from accomplishing their objective to defeat the supervillain. The action is interesting enough with enough variety throughout the scenes and the heroes strengths are all utilised (Aquaman is probably the most useless here) appropriately. I'm looking forward to the standalone Batman and Superman films in the future but Hollywood can keep their films with 101 heroes in the one movie in my opinion. 3-2.5.

Best known for their collaboration with R. Kelly on The Fiesta remix, Boo and Gotti only ever released this album as a pair. They hail from Chicago and shout-out the city on track 2 and 11, but this features a lot of southern rap influence, with Mannie Fresh producing most of it and it being released through Cash Money Records. Their name seems odd. Boo is what someone calls their S.O. and the other has named himself off of an infamous gangster... I must be missing something. Away, from that, this is a consistently decent project but nothing more. It's worth noting that it features two Kanye beats, 'Gangsta' and '600', but they aren't touching his best work. 'Think It Over', or 'Think...', as it appears on some tracklists, is the only song that caught my attention to any high degree thanks to its sample. The topics on hand aren't too interesting. There are a number of songs about chicks, some general gangsta rap and one or two more consciously minded songs like 'Dead Ghetto', where the ghetto is personified and that features and was produced by the King of R&B. 'Baby Girl' is kind of catchy as well with its bouncy hook by TQ. The penultimate, Hot Shit', on the other hand, is slow, boring and the worst thing here. Like I said, it's a decent listen, but I wouldn't recommend this unless you adore Mannie Fresh production. I've given this a bunch of spins but not much has stuck with me. Best Tracks: Dear Ghetto, 1 Adam 12, Think It Over, 600, Out Here