Debut studio album by Leslie "Freeway" Pridgen, rapper from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, whose moniker is taken from drug dealer "Freeway" Rick Ross. The rapper meets fellow citizen Beanie Sigel in a club, the two become friends and decide to help each other enter a label: Sigel signs with Roc-A-Fella and proposes his friend to Jay-Z, which leads Freeway to debut in "The Dynasty" (2000) in a song together with him, Sigel and Memphis Bleek. Hova signs the young MC with Roc-A-Fella and puts him among the main interpreters of the State Property group together with Sigel and other Philadelphia rappers. The year after releasing an album with the group, Freeway made his solo debut.
The music is handled by the label's in-house producers, Just Blaze is primarily responsible for production with 10 out of 16 beats, Kanye West and Bink make two beats each, Mariah Carey, Ruggedness and Black Key have one beat each. Guests include State Property members Beanie Sigel, Young Gunz, Sparks and Peedi Crakk, as well as Jay-Z, Mariah Carey, Nate Dogg, Snoop Dogg and Nelly. Just Blaze's the main producer and provides a distinctly Rocafellian sound, the soundscape is strong, bright, glossy, modern and solid, although this is certainly not the best musical document of Just Blaze and the album presents several irregularities and contrasting moments, such as the tunes for the club, the rnb tracks, some stains and some smudges behind the keyboards. Several Blaze beats don't work or are just not good, and even Kanye West's sonic solutions seem to be scraps of him, his best rhythm ("Hear the Song") uses a sample that the following year LES will put on the new Nas album for the track "Just a Moment", while the other production sounds like an imitation of a Just Blaze choice.
The disk faces topics already heard in the State Property — street hustling, thug life, drug game — and repeated here until exhaustion. Nevertheless, it comes out a strong album, slender with the graceless and constantly powerful delivery of Freeway. The album is full of guests, often from the Roc-A-Fella roster that also crowds the music video of the single "What We Do", and features only one solo cut out of the fourteen proposed (sixteen with the bonus tracks), the introductory "Free". Excluding the singers, most of these guys disappoint: Snoop Dogg is clearly unfit with his slow flow over the average production of Just Blaze that calls for faster execution, while Nelly is only here to boost the number of sales on a shoddy club tune over one of Just Blaze's few bad productions, inserting random sounds to complicate a poor track. Young Gunz deliver an effortless performance and Peedi Crack stars in the hit "Flipside", the most successful single of Freeway's career, hitting box number 95 on the Hot 100 and reaching the top 40 among rap singles. On the bonus tracks, Jay-Z and Mariah Carey do a victory lap rnb on "You Got Me", without adding anything to the disc over an uninspired production created by Just Blaze who's also credited to the rhythm of the second bonus track, "Line 'Em Up" with a somewhat weak Young Chris, the rhythm is also feverish and washed out.
There are several cuts that emerge in this hour, among which the excellent Roc-A-Fella posse track "What We Do", featuring Jay-Z and Beanie Sigel, "All My Life", a good joint with Nate Dogg, over a tighter and heavier production realized by Bink, "Don't Cross the Line", where Freeway goes hardcore over one of the finest rhythms by Just Blaze, with a elegant hook by Faith Evans, "Alright", simple boom bap with the sample of "Mystic Brew" by Ronnie Foster, the same previously hear in A Tribe Called Quest's "Electric Relaxation", and "Hear the Song", where Kanye West creates a fresh rhythm with the sample of Chic's "Will You Cry (When You Hear This Song)", used by Nas in "Just a Moment".
Released by Roc-A-Fella, distributed by Def Jam, the effort was met with critical acclaim and was one of the best-selling records of the year, peaking at #5 on the Billboard 200 and in the top three on the rap chart, hailed as one of the best records ever from the Roc-A-Fella label.
Rating: 7.5/10.
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