This album is best known by hip hop fans for it's unusual album art, as is probably Poohman/MC Pooh, which is unfortunate as he is a worthy artist. After checking out his 3rd album, Judgement Day, I was looking forward to this as that album was unexpectedly pretty great. As expected, the production isn't as good as Judgement Day, but it still has its qualities and is a sizeable jump from his debut album, Life of a Criminal, that Ant Banks also produced.
It takes no time at all to get into it, with the opener, 'Niggas Ain't Playin'', kicking it off with some high energy funk and sampling 'Dem Niggers Ain't Playing' by The Watts Prophets for the hook that creates a nice contrast from the quickly spit verses. The next couple of songs are enjoyable with Pooh sounding a bit like Ice-T on the title track. It starts to lose a touch in the production department from 'Player Haters' and some content with 'Your Dick' and 'Eating' Pussy', but I can't be too critical of the consistency. The aforementioned track is an interesting one that advocates for cunnilingus in a time where most rappers were saying that they don't do it. Petty Pablo's 'Freek a Leek' come to mind: "And love to get her pussy licked/By another bitch, 'cause I ain't drunk enough to do that." The previous song, 'Your Dick', sounds somewhat like a dirtier imitation of LL Cool J's 'I Need Love'.
Don't let the cover fool you. If you like west coast mobb music/g-funk, Pooh's early albums are worth checking out.
Beats: ★★★☆
Rapping/Bars: ★★★★
Hooks: ★★★☆
Best Tracks: Niggas Ain't Playin', Don't Cost a Dime, Funky As I Wanna Be, Fuckin' Wit Dank (Remix), The Projects, The Big Gangster
The best don't stand out like they do on Pooh's previous album, Judgement Day, but the consistency is probably another improvement, being his most consistent so far from front to back. The hook of 'Back Breaker' is as catchy as the Chinese Virus. The featuring artists are dope, particularly those on 'Murder Rap' and the bonus track. 'Down Low' is interesting. I thought it was borrowing lines from R. Kelly's classic, 'Down Low (Nobody Has to Know)', for the melodic hook but this album preceded it. Stan Keith AKA G-Man Stan who produces all of this album did a great job here. I'm four albums down into Pooh's discography and I continue to be entertained.
Beats: ★★★★
Rapping/Bars: ★★★★☆
Hooks: ★★★★
Best Tracks: What the Deuce Look Like, If It's Going Down, Back Breaker, Murder Rap, Down Low, Why I Gotta Be a Bitch
If you played the predecessor, Trivial Pursuit: Live!, then you may be disappointed with the lack of new features here. Apart from a new bank of questions, there are no new game modes or gameplay features. Some of the questions also seem more random. I feel like when I've played this I've thought more often that no one would know the answer to the question I was being asked than the first game in the series. Maybe it's trying to be authentic to the board game but some audio or visual questions would have added some engaging variety that the solitary text ones we again have here. At the time of writing this, you can get online games, but you seem to need to play during the time Americans aren't sleeping for the most part.
This is like many true crime documentaries. The cases they share are interesting, but like many US shows like this as well, they could be half the running time they are. The amount of repetition after each break is annoying. In the episode about Michael Blagg, I think the photo of his wife an daughter were shown about 100 times.
"Start making decent music, RIOT". This is a dull EP that lacks creativity and that completely comes and goes. The longest song isn't even 3 minutes long and they still get boring. And just like I will be lenient with a double album that has some poor moments, if you are only giving me 13 minutes of music, it better all be incredible. I love how you can't dislike any record a female rapper makes these days without being called 'misogynistic'. What a time to be alive!
Best Tracks: Princess Diana