Debut studio album by Victor "Noreaga" Santiago, rapper from Queens and member of the Capone-N-Noreaga duo. When Capone ends up in prison, the other finds himself having to pursue a career in the music industry alone. Production is handled by Trackmasters, LES, EZ Elpee, SPK, Marley Marl, Kurt Gowdy, DJ Clue?, Duro, Nashiem Myrick, Jay "Waxx" Garfield and Dame Grease. Guests are Nature, Big Pun, Cam'ron, Styles P, Jadakiss, Carl Thomas, Maze, Musolini, Kid Capri, Kool G Rap, Chico DeBarge, Tammy Lucas, Busta Rhymes, Spliff Star and Nas.
Noreaga's intro on a beautiful piano loop, ma-fi-oso, possibly, the best rhythm on the record. Track number two is one of the strongest on the album, it's a posse featuring Nature of The Firm, Big Punisher of Terror Squad, Cam'ron of Diplomats, Styles & Jadakiss of The LOX. Almost every neighborhood in New York is represented, and there are four of the best hip-hop group ever in East Coast history. Except The Firm. Which was a supergroup. Just kidding. Anyway, it should be that kind of track, representative of the City. Behind the keyboards, you should find one of the best producers ever in New York, instead there's Swizz Beatz. Boom bap fat and heavy, then Swizz samples, no, stop, wait. It should be prepared: ladies and gentlemen, the maestro Kasseem Dean introduces to us a Richard Strauss sample, "Also Sprach Zarathustra (Thus Spoke Zarathustra)", a symphonic poem performed for the first time on 27 November 1896 in Frankfurt, Germany. Swizz Beats samples Strauss.
It's humbling to read and listen to: his rhythm is synthesized in a sensationally annoying way, the fat and heavy drum annihilates the whole Strauss orchestra and takes away its original magic and epic nature. The mixing is shabby, Nature delivers his first verse with a good clear flow, but the drum is above his voice, you hardly understand what he's saying. Then, Big Punisher writes a piece of history: he wakes up and decides he wants to save this half-mainstream half-pop debut album of your generic rapper, and to elevate this cut to an immortal hit. The Bronx rapper, for some reason, is in the studio when Noreaga is recording the track and, against the will of the album's author, Pun writes his own lyrics and claims to record it, convincing Santiago.
Big Pun performs the best verse of the song with a flow that is impracticable for the others. Cam'ron picks up the still warm mic and delivers a good verse with dirty style, then Styles & Jadakiss at their best, with a single verse performed back n forth in Raekwon & Ghostface's "Heaven or Hell" style, amazing. Ah, yes, then there would also be Noreaga: the guy is inspired and energetic, but the best has passed and he remains a little in the background, after five great MCs basically all at their best in their best period. In the following track there's nothing to detect, EZ Elpee brings out a bouncy rhythm, there's a Carl Thomas hook and a half-hardcore delivery of the lead rapper. The title track is extracted as a single and makes the charts, the musical carpet is signed Trackmasterz, while Noreaga spits determined on this bounce. A sexual scandalous skit precedes "Hed": yet another bouncy beat by Trackmasters, Nore's generic, Nature's much better, however, are both overshadowed by bad production.
"It's Not a Game" boasts one of the best duos you've never heard of, Musaliny-N-Maze, who inexplicably don't even have an album to their credit. Beautiful sad and melancholy jazzy beat made by SPK, piano loop, poor and tight drum, dirty and evil, hardcore delivery by Musolini, Maze kills the hook. Noreaga performs with good flow, Maze delivers cool and lucid on the mesmerizing rhythm created by SPK. "Fiesta" is a party track, the Spanish title is self-explanatory, it's practically the opposite of the previous one. Poke & Tone behind the keyboards, the guys have only one type of rhythm in mind, the ones that bounce randomly to annoy the listener as much as possible. It's paradoxical that Swizz Beats isn't the worst producer on the record. Noreaga was born for the club, this production is good for him, besides there's Kid Capri shouting something in the background: it's a very weak song, dull, it also murders the cohesion of the disc.
"40 Island" has a dark, bouncy boom bap created by Marley Marl. NORE opens one of the rawest cuts on the tape, with a good but not impressive delivery. Musolini exalts himself on the dark productions and delivers another excellent verse with a confident style. Kool G Rap, strongest of all, kills the beat by taming it with a professional, icy, crisp, smooth flow. Track number ten is quite curious: Noreaga brings out a fragmented flow and there's a hook from Chico DeBarge keeping the whole thing afloat, but the interesting part is the soundscape chosen by LES. It's a boom bap synthesized with jazzy elements, it's totally unbearable in the first two minutes, then it starts to work and manages to go beyond five minutes easily. The Queens rapper retains his best flow for "The Change", easily killing the half-limp beat made by Kurt Gowdy: the sound is poor, enhanced by some random rough strings in the background, Noreaga seems to have no trouble managing the production.
The third single of the album arrives. More hopping production than usual, the poor musical carpet suggests Trackmasterz, but the clearly Middle Eastern sound confirms that it's Neptunes, one of the worst things that happened to hip-hop. Producers of the decade according to Billboard, they're right, I guess. Noreaga flounders in the desert as these guys place their trademark over him, as I mentioned earlier, the bouncy Middle Eastern beat. It's "Superthug" that launched Neptunes in the music industry. Thanks Noreaga. This dude starts spitting "what" all the time as he seriously has urgent problems and a girl, Tammy Lucas, sings the hook. All this above the rhythm of the Neptunes, it's all an incomprehensible mess and we're only on the initial hook. Twenty seconds of this "what". I begin to regret "Panda". I feel like apologizing to Desiigner.
Going back to this single, if you turn off the volume from the music video on youtube, in those twenty seconds, it seems that the boy is going crazy. I want to close it fast. There's Noreaga. Three stanzas. #1 in the rap chart, one of the best-selling singles of the year. "Banned from TV" didn't even rank. Fortunately, there's still some expertise in this project and it is mainly the guests who bring it. While Musolini made his debut on CNN's first album, this is Maze's debut and in "Da Story" he's present as a solo artist, with Noreaga. Skit, then, oriental production, heavy dusty midtempo drum, good samples. LES does a great job here. The track is splendid, Santiago delivers with one of his top flows, velvety, powerful, then Maze has a short hook. The next track is a cheerful hopping boom bap created by DJ Clue? and Duro, Noreaga is in his latest solo cut, it's an acceptable piece, not one of the best, not one of the worst.
Nashiem Myrick & Jay "Waxx" Garfield tailor the rhythm of "The Assignment", it's very similar to the previous ones, it sounds better. Noreaga disfigures in front of Busta Rhymes, excellent contribution of Maze, lucid, short, good work. Noreaga continues. There's a wonderful bridge with light strings and a nice chipmunk soul sample. It closes Spliff Star. For the last real track of his debut album, "Body in the Trunk", Noreaga performs three stanzas in back n forth together with Nas on a dull boom bap production of Dame Grease. Here too, the rhythm is invariably hopping, it was for 70 minutes. Escobar enters fluid, smoothness, quick, lucid and technical, Noreaga seems to be up to him, on the same level as one of the top rappers for once, he's confident, inspired, he sounds good. In "One Love", the rapper talks for five minutes with his imprisoned friend Capone — the title is a tribute to Esco, who had dedicated that song to his friends in his debut four years earlier. The outro has the same rhythm as the intro, a pearl.
Released by Penalty Recordings and distributed by Tommy Boy Records, the album is a commercial success beyond belief. Behind, of course, there's a major, Warner: third on the Billboard 200, first among rap albums, top 20 in Canada, in three months is certified gold and is one of the best-selling rap albums of the season. It's a fairly important mainstream rap album, despite being generic, erratic and inconsistent: discontinuous production is pretty much the same for 19 times and almost 70 minutes, SPK has the finest soundscape. When it's not the guests who are constantly eclipsing Noreaga, the producers deliver a beat so good or so weak that it completely dusts him, leaving him in the sand: the rapper can't hold an album on his own for such an impressive length of time and fails to build particularly memorable material in his solo songs. The project is sprawling and tries to attract as many audiences as possible by alternating street tracks with club tunes, with some success, judging by the over 165,000 physical copies sold in the first week. Lyrically, there's really nothing to discuss, the themes are what you can find in any other generic rap album: despite all the flaws, this is the best album released by Noreaga, soon after he will be persuaded by the executives to change his name and personality for the next mainstream LP.
Highlights: "Banned from TV", "It's Not a Game", "40 Island", "Da Story", "Body in the Trunk".
Rating: 7.3/10.
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