Second and last album for the renowned duo Pete Rock & CL Smooth, before their dissolution. The MC from New Rochelle is the main protagonist on the mic with several solos, Pete Rock performs some hooks, a single solo track and few verses, while the guests are Crystal Johnson, Vinja Mojica, Rob-O, Deda and Grap Luva.
Most of the album is aimed at women, in every single verse there's at least one passage dedicated to the female figure (with rare exceptions), while the rest of the battle raps is made up of random extracts of violence, bravado and conscious. CL Smooth maintains an excellent, fast, technical flow and has the merit of not obscuring the rhythms. The production of Pete Rock is almost at the debut level: simple and essential boom bap beats, hard midtempo drums, layered samples of jazz, funk, hip-hop and soul songs from the sixties and seventies. The duo pulls out a solid record that cannot compare with the previous one and extends towards an excessive duration of over 76 minutes with 16 very long cuts, half of the album is over five minutes.
Distributed by Elektra, it reaches the top ten in the rap chart and, although devoid of classic or distinctive cuts, it maintains a sublime East Coast production, with some of the best choices of Pete Rock ("Carmel City", "Take You There", "Searching", "It's on You", "Get on the Mic"). Ignored by critics upon its release, the album was rediscovered by fans in retrospect as one of the slickest records of its period. Shortly after the album's release, the duo split up for good.
Rating: 8.5/10.
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