Fourth album in four years for the producer Statik Selektah, on his third solo effort. It should be the album that definitely launches him among the most popular underground producers in the industry, on the third attempt: braggadocio lyrics, hardcore and battle rap, on East Coast boom bap rhythms.
The sound that features the light intro is a bit of a prelude to the one throughout the album: unlike the usual, Statik here doesn't excel, his boom bap is just decent, and so will the whole record. The second track, features a disturbed boom bap, looks almost (s)low-jazz, Bun B not completely fit on this production, Munroe on the hook, Wale completes the track. Munroe's hook is overly cheesy, a rare busted track of Statik, up to now in his entire discography, of cuts like this one can be counted on his fingertips. "Critically Acclaimed" should be an easy banger, I mean, there's Lil' Fame, Saigon and Sean Price: sadly, Statik still misses the beat and sets up a hopping boom bap. Fame fixes it and sets it up with a hardcore delivery worthy of his name, Saigon and Sean Price save the joint with other excellent deliveries.
When the producer, on track number four, still gets the wrong rhythm – third, consecutive –, well, at this point, I don't think you can consider it a coincidence anymore: the album is completely gone, in an unreasonable way. There's an oriental boom bap that sounds bad and looks poor in "Night People", Freeway has to open the games and then drop the mic, but who picks it up? Nobody. Less-known Masspike Miles and Red Café can't help him save the track and they don't do a lot to show off, they feature mediocre flow, mediocre cadence, and mediocre, low-level delivery, with a horrible hook. Smif-n-Wessun are the guests of "Follow Up", something still doesn't work in the production: here it's experimental, boom bap based on an electronic piano of two keys, looped in the background, with semi-mafia interludes and another elementary piano in crescendo, Tek and Steele are rehearsed on this type of beat and don't know how to spit, and the song suffers. It's all mixed up here, it's not the typical rhythm you expect on an album like that.
It's certainly one of the worst starts on a Statik album. Four, if we count the intro five, completely wrong rhythms in a row, they're not decent or sufficient, they're bad and never work. The album finally picks up after about a quarter of an hour of suffering in "Do It to Death", when heavyweights Lil' Fame, Kool G Rap and Havoc arrive. Again, technically, it's a banger. If you take the tracklist and watch the track, it's a classic, even without listening to the song. But no. Because the sound carpet chosen by the beatmaker still doesn't work. Never. I'm starting to think that Statik didn't actually produce this album, but he's the only one credited as a producer, and I don't think the executives with some Jedi Mind Tricks ties had anything to do with the choice of rhythms. The guy chooses a heavy hardcore beat here, it's the home of Fame, more than the other two: however, the beat is qualitatively bad. Never mind, Lil' Fame starts with one of his typical deliveries and destroys everything he encounters on the street. The fact that there's no real hook, replaced by a couple of kind of adlibs repeated in series by MOP rapper, makes it easier for the boys to work: Havoc's flow doesn't stand out above Statik's powerful choice, G Rap closes the joint and save everything there's to save with one of his smoothest deliveries ever.
"Come Around" has a decent production, jazzy boom bap, heavy kick and snare, some scratches to remind us of Preemo. Term and Royce, both deliver worthily, smooth and fluid even over this dystopian hopping beat. Hook formed by a sample that works little and badly, whatever it is, hidden by some scratches; the track at the end is among the best heard so far, but at the same time it's far from being one of the best things done by these three in their careers. On a sequenced, minimalist and skeletal rhythm, comes JFK, who brings out a determined flow after the verses of Reks and Joe Scudda, who, for being a Justus League dude, doesn't kill the rhythm. This is followed by a solo by Consequence, on the umpteenth hopping and gaunt beat chosen by the producer. At the tenth song, I start to have a different tracklist, perhaps: there's the title track, an interlude in which JFK is present. Statik reserves the best beat of his selection for the skit, it's a jazzy boom bap. I don't really understand, the man is weird on this record.
Styles P and Talib Kweli are ready to kill "The Thrill Is Gone", they just need a good rhythm, and it never comes: in its place, a desert soundscape comes out, poor, cheap and minimalist, obviously bouncy, the two try to spit something on them, but they don't sound great, no one could be fit on this thing, and even the Biggie sample feels out of place and uncomfortable on the hook here. "Get Out" comes suddenly, and is one of the best songs: boom bap essential and bouncy, Skyzoo eats the track and leads the way for everyone, there's a Lee Wilson good-level hook, then Statik changes the rhythm after the hook, providing a quiet, light beat, supported by a piano and strings in the background. Big Pooh glides deep and the almost imperceptible soulful musical carpet helps him deliver with smoothness, even Torae benefits from this good sound made almost by accident. The Massachusetts producer tries to revive Souls of Mischief in "Laughin", with a West Coast production, and a good level soul sample. The following piece is also a homage to the West Coast, deep jazzy boom bap, Evidence lies well, velvet, fluid, and makes a good hook, then Fashawn has a choked and uncertain style, improving at the end of his verse; Kali closes, his verse will not be remembered in history, he has a more uncertain flow than Fashawn's, he's undecided, perhaps frightened, even overbeat is a bit shaky.
The song number fifteen is an underground posse that shouldn't tell you anything, on a rare good jazzy rhythm by Statik, there are Reks, Kali, Termanology and Good Brotha. This last one offers a hook somewhere between R&B and soul, Kali returns to be seen, which is slightly more confident than the previous song (but still mediocre), while the other performers don't seem to be too inspired. A solo is also granted to Term, which celebrates the year of his and Statik's birth, in one of the preludes to their long and prolific collaborative career: boom bap jazzy sibilant and disturbing, Term doesn't disappoint, helped by some scratches. Closes "Walking Away", perhaps the best beat of this edition, and the beatmaker keeps it for the end. Waiting for this rhyme are Kali and Novel. ¡Ay, caramba! Parcero, ¿por qué? Kali is already poor in the first verse and bad in the hook, supported by a nice jazzy / soul background, Novel partially remedies in the second verse with a hoarse, albeit shaky and strangled delivery, definitively weak. Being the best beat, Statik Selektah rightly extends it to five minutes, it means that there's another bad verse from Kali: the boy is doing better than before, but also this time he seems tired, slow, semi-sleeping, easy-going.
It's a suffering and painful album producer. I don't mean it looks like a DJ Khaled album or anything, but it almost seems like he goes out of his way to look like it. If you take away those annoying synths, shouts and ten thousand elements that DJ Khaled puts all together on the same five-minute tracks, the result would probably be similar to one of the first five tracks on this record. The simplistic and very poor production of this work doesn't help the many excellent MCs who have come to perform: not recommended, Statik has done much better, before and after.
Highlights: "Do It to Death", "Get Out".
Rating: 5.7/10.
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