After a short hiatus, Young Gunz duo formed by Young Chris and Neef Buck release their second album, which coincides with Jay-Z's "new" Roc-A-Fella Records' second record after the label split and the Brooklyn rapper became head of Def Jam. The first album of the "new label" is "534" by Memphis Bleek, who is also a guest on this CD along with John Legend, Kanye West, Pooda Brown, 112 and Daz Dillinger. As evidently as sensational, there are no other guests coming from their State Property group, because the act disbanded and some artists decided to follow Dame Dash with his new label leaving Jay-Z's Roc-A-Fella. As in the previous record, the production is almost entirely entrusted to Chad Hamilton, the other rhythms are provided by Kanye West, Bangladesh, Boola and Swizz Beatz.
Chad Hamilton, dominant in Young Gunz debut album, opens with an essential and accessible jazzy rhythm, the first of all a series of simplistic productions of this LP. Young Gunz, so dull as to envy today's mumble rappers, arrive here without lucidity, deliver light-hearted with a trivial and very weak functional hook, attempt to hit light-hearted photocopy of "Can't Stop, Won't Stop" and all that dozen other attempts, unlike the inimitable original, this also doesn't work. Swizz Beatz arrives at track number two with the package "production + featuring": skeletal, confused, annoying and simplistic beat with the beatmaker who positions synths at random, making the whole rhythm hold up on a bare clapping and the duo pulls out quite smoothness verses, while Swizz exchanges some random bars with them.
Chad Hamilton's back with his decent, accessible, tight and partially annoying trademark boom bap; the neo soul pop freshness of the 112 shakes the cut and partly saves it. Daz Dillinger doesn't save "Tonight", the hopping and annoying, skeletal and simplistic jazzy beat of Hamilton. The Young Gunz deliver without life. Hamilton provides another simplistic and partially annoying rhythm, always jazzy, in "Don't Stop", with one of the most inspired delivery but the song is below salvable. The beatmaker Bangladesh arrives to give a turn to the disc and succeeds in his intent: good skeletal, disturbed, annoying, confused and confusing boom bap that obscures the soft deliveries of the duo; a forgettable track that ends up directly in the garbage. Among the worst.
When Kanye West & John Legend seem to have restored dignity to this sophomore, on a skeletal jazzy rhythm brilliantly created by Kanye himself, Swizz Beatz returns. Incredible, however, in "Beef" he guessed a decent and listenable jazzy production, an essential boom bap, simple and tight in its skeletal form, with male soul samples in the background and a delivery never so inspired by the duo. There's even a light jazzy bridge on the soul hook, I don't think you'll hear anything like that on a Swizz rhythm again. In the following track, a skeletal, very tight, tense and gloomy jazzy beat by Chad Hamilton, while the Young Gunz deliver inspired in a disturbing mood made such by the sample looped in the background, Pooda Brown peeps to give a splash of dirt on the disc, if what was already there wasn't enough.
The guest stays for dinner and also sleeps at Young Gunz home, showing up again the next morning for breakfast in "The Way It Goes": again Chad Hamilton with his boom bap jazzy dance / EDM, perfect for the club and the duo try again the hit for the club this time under a more appropriate rhythm, they return to deliver as he prefer, "bragga-fuck-all-y'all", functional, banal, easy-going hook with female R&B fitting. The ballad-dancehall rhythm that pays homage to seventies disco is enthralling, Pooda Brown seems happy to be in a Young Gunz album and he's better than the others on this accessible and decent rhythm.
Boola offers an ethereal, tight essential jazzy rhythm with tense synth looped in the background to keep the duo awake, wonderful piano bridge in the post-hook, functional and bland hook, light delivery almost without energy of the duo, it seems almost as if the synth paralyzed them, another bridge of acoustic guitar arrives to revitalize them, honest, almost decent, accessible track. It closes "We Still Here" by Chad Hamilton with Memphis Bleek. It could be among the worst cuts ever made by Shawn Carter's label. Boom bap jazzy tense, Jamesbondian attempt, dystopian rhythm, Chad Hamilton brings out a decent product, but disappoints a little throughout the record: the beat is partially annoying, the delivery duo inspired, but with rather weak and badly dropped verses, Memphis Bleek little better.
Typical sophomore jinx, inconsistent, empty, without personality, bad guests, cheap production. Released by Roc-A-Fella, the album gets a mixed reception from critics and enjoys good success, even if not at the same level as the debut: the record is second among rap records, but stops at the 15th box on the Billboard 200. The tepid response obtained by the singles "Set It Off" and "Don't Keep Me Waiting (Come Back Soon)" decreed the early end of the Young Gunz group.
Rating: 4.5/10.
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