One year after the great success of his debut disk, Big Daddy Kane returns with a new album. While Marley Marl produced entirely is first CD, this one presents beats from Big Daddy Kane himself, Marley Marl, Teddy Riley, Mister Cee, Prince Paul and Easy Mo Bee. The guests are DJ Red Alert, Scoob Lover, Ant Live, Nice & Smooth, Blue Magic, Mister Cee, Chuck Sanely and Scrap Lover.
The title track opens with a minimal, fast, frenetic rhythm realized by Prince Paul, excellent delivery by Daddy Kane after the introduction; smooth, clean, technical, fast, dope. Main samples from Tom Jones and Pat Lundy. The following is another great cut, tight minimal soundscape that rocks, the emcee dominates the beat destroying it with an impeccable, composed, flowing and powerful delivery. Splendid work behind the keyboards by Easy Mo Bee with the sample of Booker T. and the M.G.'s "Melting Pot". "Mortal Combat" opens with a sample from James Brown, then it boasts a funky rhythm with a really too tight sample here on the chorus from Lyn Collins' "Mama Feelgood", luckily the production crafted by Big Daddy Kane is accessible, light and minimal, the Juice Crew MC lowers the tone of the delivery, functional hook.
The fourth joint is solid: samples from Rudy Ray Moore's "Miss Wonderful" and Grace Jones' "My Jamaican Guy", minimal beat invented by Kane, simple hook without bridge, rhythm with tense and dark lines in the background, syncopated, slow, spoken delivery. Big Daddy Kane returns to raise the quality level with "Young, Gifted, and Black": Marley Marl invents a nice beat with very tight sample looped in the background from Albert King's "I'll Play the Blues for You", Kane delivers shiny, syncopated, with a velvet style. "Smooth Operator" is a demi-classic: sample from Mary Jane Girls' "All Night Long", splendid light, minimal production by Daddy Kane, excellent silky and calm delivery of the rapper, functional hook with cool bridge, build around samples from The Mohawks' "The Champ" and Isaac Hayes' "Do Your Thing".
With "Calling Mr. Welfare" there's a first drop that will lead the second part of the album to be less performing than the first one: functional hook, Kane's smooth delivery, minimal music provided by Easy Mo Bee with sample of trumpet looped in the background from James Brown's "The Chicken". The Brooklyn rapper continues to deliver smoothly even in the next track, on a decent and minimal boom bap chosen by Teddy Riley. Prince Paul returns behind the keys to create the soundscape of "Ain't No Stopping Us Now", that has a minimal frenetic beat, functional female hook, good smooth and quick delivery of the rapper, excellent, gorgeous sample from the homonymous song of McFadden & Whitehead. "Pimpin 'Aint' Easy" presents a simple chorus, minimal and frenetic production by Daddy Kane, smooth and dope delivery by Greg Nice, who goes quite strong, then Kane with his smooth and clean flow, closes Smooth B in a fully sexual choice with homophobic traits. Sample from Rufus Thomas' "Do the Funky Penguin".
The last four tracks are a little less solid than the previous ones. "Big Daddy's Theme" is a short instrumental cut self-produced with a part scratched around what should be the chorus and simple music, samples from Consumer Report's "Go on With Your Bad Self" and The Staple Singers' "I'll Take You There". "To Be Your Man" has a skeletal music, another work of the New York artist behind the keyboards, with delivery spoken by the MC: the joint is a ballad with a hard and skinny drum machine in the background, a soulful female hook, the only really weak song on the record, with a good bridge on the soulful sung chorus and shrill synth in the post-hook. Follows a simple soundscape realized by Mister Cee, good delivery of Kane. "On the Move" has a decent, tight, simple, skeletal production, good smooth rapping by Big Daddy Kane over his own production, functional hook. Decent Scoob Lover and Scrap Lover here. "Warm It Up, Kane" closes with the last rhythm of Kane: skinny beat, sample from Big John Hamilton's "Big Bad John", good fast and smooth delivery of the emcee, functional chorus.
Published by Cold Chillin' Records and Reprise Records, distributed by Warner Bros. Records, it produces a couple of singles, "Smooth Operator" and "I Get the Job Done", the first hit #1 on the rap chart. The disk peaks #4 among rnb records and is one of the best-selling of the year in hip-hop, carving out a space for itself even in the British market. Grabbing the gold certification by RIAA in few months, the second tape by Kane becomes his best result from the commercial point of view.
Big Daddy Kane sophomore record is solid and strong at least as much as the debut. The rapper remains one of the best of his period with an album a little less cohesive and coherent compared to the debut, although he improves his rapping, still exceptional, easy, effortless, with a flow dope and technically impeccable, between the smoothest of the year. Kane takes care of the production himself, leaving a couple of rhythms to Prince Paul, Marley Marl, Easy Moe Bee, Teddy Riley and Mister Cee. He has an excellent, clean production, composed of good samples taken mainly from funky and soul seventies, his lyrics are of excellent level, mainly braggadocio with some deviation towards the sentimental and the political, but they slide into misogyny and homophobia ("Pimpin' Ain't Easy"), also presenting trivial and useless cuts that vary through hip house crossover ("Children R the Future"), ballad ("To Be Your Man"), new jack swing ("I Get the Job Done"), and R&B fillers ("Big Daddy's Theme").
The first half of the album travels together with the best records of the year, while in the second part the quality drops and the overall length is slightly excessive, however, ending up being his best commercial result (gold): nevertheless, it's a varied, fresh, and excellent album by one of the best hip hop talents of the eighties.
Highlights: "It's a Big Daddy Thing", "Another Victory", "Young, Gifted, and Black", "Smooth Operator", "Ain't No Stopping Us Now".
Rating: 8.6/10.
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