With Brian continuing to self-produce his albums, the beats do lack something special at times, but his crooning is still excellent. It's an enjoyable, comfortable listen, albeit lacking a lot of great moments. Best Tracks: 4th of July, She Doesn't Know, Made for Love

A very consistent album, one of the best R&B albums of 2006 and the good thing is Brian stays true to the genre and doesn't go for the hip hop sounding R&B tracks that many others do. I'm a hip hop fan, but I just think it's good for artists to stick to what they do best and not try to crossover. I've heard a few of his other albums and I'd rank this as his best so far. Tim & Bob do the job once again with the production that they provide. Best Tracks: Used to Be My Girl, What's My Name, Unhappy Without You, A Little Too Late, Holdin' On (Missin' You), Again, Can't Leave You Alone, The Rest of My Life Red White & Blue

At its core, this is one of the better King Geedorah, or MFDOOM, or whatever he wants to call himself today, albums that I've heard. However, it could be so much better. All of the sampled dialogue across the 'songs' bring it down for me a lot, stopping the flow of the album. About halfway through 'Monster Zero' someone says, 'You call that music?' which is so apt. When it's just beats and rapping, it's overall really strong with 'I Wonder' being the pick from the album. I don't mind a lot of features as I've never been infatuated with Daniel Dumile's rapping. I think most are good as well. Gigan is probably the one who stands out as a bit bland on 'Krazy World' and doesn't elevate the beat. Best Tracks: Fazers, Fastlane, Next Levels, Anti-Matter, I Wonder

I don't understand the love this is receiving. First, let's touch on Drake's vocals. He can rap, but his voice can be grating. He really needed more features on this for it to be enjoyable. He often sings as we know to the point of this being an R&B album as much as it is a hip hop one, but his singing is very limited and his range does not stretch far at all, which means that a lot of these songs where he is singing don't build up, therefore become boring. Lyrically, it's fairly same-same for me. I drank too much, screwed a few chicks and so on. It starts to get whiny early on. And there are times when he does get macho, but it really doesn't come anywhere close to being pulled off because everything else is so soft. The beats... Again like the lyrics, they become boring too often. There are a few ones that spark my interest - For example 'Under Ground Kings' and 'Lord Knows' feel like something from the middle of the Just Blaze produced tracks from Saigon's album, 'The Greatest Story Never Told', but other than that, they've left me feeling underwhelmed. Overall, I'm not feeling this one. His debut was surprisingly okay and I prefer that more as it actually has a few tracks to keep in the playlist, but this really doesn't suit my tastes despite being a big fan of R&B as well as hip hop. Best Tracks: Over My Dead Body, Under Ground Kings, Lord Knows, HYFR

The beats on this sound like something from a few years prior in some instances and leave a lot to be desired. Paris, PE, K-Solo, Ice Cube, ATCQ are a few examples of hip hop artists who had much more original and interesting production from 1990. I love Ace on future albums such as 'A Long Hot Summer', but on this, there are occasions where he doesn't impress me a lot, with a number of lines being quite simplistic and corny. It isn't bad, but it isn't something that I'll play again. Best Tracks: Music Man, The Other Side of Town, Can't Stop the Bumrush, Maybe Next Time, Together