Two years after the previous album, Cappadonna releases his fifth studio album, the first since he officially became a member of the Wu-Tang Clan: the fact coincides with the release of the album "8 Diagrams", at the end of 2007. The rapper becomes the tenth member of the Clan and, to thank all, he brings out what is undoubtedly one of his two worst studio albums in his career. This is perhaps the worst, but in his previous effort, "The Cappatalize Project", the boy has worked hard enough to choose completely unlistenable rhythms, to combine them with his rap and that of his friends.
Cappadonna opens this record with an acapella intro, it doesn't sound good and it's the first track you can skip. "Savage Life" is therefore the summary of the whole project: weak, poor, bouncy, simplistic and banal boom bap provided by Digem Trax, dude who, like the other producers, is unknown, the rapper unnecessarily delivers hardcore spitting thug and drug bars. Soul Professa is the beatmaker of the third song and realizes one of the worst rhythms of this record, Cappa tries to spit something but the beat paddles against him and the guests who accompany him (3rd Diglah and Lounge Lo) they're both weak. This track samples "Profondo Rosso" by the group Goblin, theme of the Italian thriller movie "Profondo rosso [Deep Red]" (1975), but the production is so poor that you may not even notice this disturbing and sublime samples.
Joey Lee is the guest of the following song, poor and simplistic rhythm provided by Digem Trax and G-Clef by Mad Komposa, who is simply the man behind the Chambermusik label that keeps giving us Cappadonna albums and those of other deserving ones and worthy rappers affiliated with Wu-Tang. There's a nice soul sample looped in the background, Billy Ocean's "Red Light Spells Danger". Q-Dini implements poor jazzy elements for the fifth rhythm, Wu-Tang 10th throws you into a hardcore delivery, but he sounds very unfit. The production improves in "That Staten Island Shit", joint shared with his brother: boom bap dark, but similar to the previous ones, when you think that Digem Trax has finally guessed his first beat on the third attempt, it comes what seems to be the first futuristic hints of trap sounds. Cappadonna delivers mediocrely, Lounge Lo isn't better than him. 3rd Diglah also plays the role of producer as well as guest together with JoJo Pellegrino in "Stories": poor alternative rhythm, but more accessible than the previous ones, the main rapper isn't incisive and the guests go almost unnoticed.
After about twenty minutes, like a sudden help from the blue, a guest worthy of the name arrives, a Wu-Tang blessing: Raekwon takes "Life's a Gamble", a very dark, decent and Silenthillian boom bap production, made by the amateur Rush, which draws a nice sample, Raekwon's own "Legal Coke" from a few years before, is practically the same rhythm, not even touched, Cappadonna delivers well, smooth and decent for the first time since the beginning of this record. There's also a dude who takes the moniker Ratchet, but I really have no idea what he does. After witnessing one of the rare tracks that can be saved from this project, we return to the pit in which Cappadonna dug his career and deposited this record: the dive is immediate, BT, boy who didn't have too much imagination in choosing his alias as beatmaker, he brings you back to reality with a rhythm as weak as before, the rapper's flow isn't evil, but the rhythms don't help him. After a skit, comes a posse with Lounge Lo, King Just and Luga, on an accessible rhythm, light soul, but always poor, the work of Soul Professa: the MC of Staten Island changes style and tries to deliver calmly, with results contrasting, guests are indistinguishable even from Cappadonna himself.
Q-Dini also misses the second rhythm for "Grungy", a track that has the same defects as the other ones: the guest is useless, while, as for other rapper's albums, here comes the moment when Cappadonna surrenders to ugliness of his product and begins to deliver subdued, continuing with this mood in the next song, badly produced by 3rd Diglah. Watch him, listen to him in "Da Vorzon": there's a good beat, finally, made by Blastah Beats, boom bap dark and jazzy, almost decent, it's always poor and cheap, but we're towards the end of the album, so, it doesn't do much importance anymore, Cappadonna spits his bars calmly and subdued, Lounge Lo could better perform his random lyrics, instead he never does. "Somebody Got to Go", with Lounge Lo again, boasts a cheerful jazzy rhythm that makes you smile, because it's ridiculous, provided by G-Clef da Mad Komposa. Cappadonna no longer knows what to invent to pull out bars on these beats, whoever made all these rhythms was playing a bad joke.
Lounge Lo adds nothing, in its fourth and final guest joint. In "Fire", the second Wu guest, Masta Killa, introduces himself: light and alternative jazzy boom bap, signed by Chicargo, another amateur, wonderful soulful sample looped in the background by "Mariya" of Family Circle. If we look at the rest of the record, this is an absurd situation: Cappadonna delivers well, Masta Killa is calm, crisp, smooth, provides the best track of the CD by far. The last choices close the circle, they're the typical closure of a Cappadonna album. In "Speed Knots" it's NES playing randomly behind the keyboards, poor boom bap, a hardcore style here can never fit. Digem Trax was completely gone after the first few tracks and is back for the last one, a soulful production, of course, how can it be... ladies and gentlemen, soulful rhythm... HEAVY: genius, idol, wonderful! Heavy soulful rhythm, oh man: Cappa starts sounding lame and plaintive, despite a style quicker than usual on this "alternative" beat. The nineteenth track is another acapella choice.
53 minutes, it seems at least 70, for 19 cuts, with intro, outro, and a skit that divides the project in two sections. There are at least a dozen different amateur producers, that you have never heard or read: Digem Trax, Soul Professa, G-Clef da Mad Komposa, Q-Dini, 3rd Diglah, Rush, BT, Blastah Beats, Chicargo and NES, they all suck with the only exceptions of Rush ("Life's a Gamble") and Chicargo ("Fire"), both rescued by Wu-Tang guests Raekwon and Masta Killa, the best on the record, who provide the only acceptable songs. The rest is hard, musically complicated to listen to, maybe not as much as his fourth album, but while listening to this effort, you get to a certain point where you wonder: why did this dude never protest when he heard these shoddy and random rhythms that his own friends were offering him? What was his intention here?
And it's difficult to find an answer that's convincing. From the lyrical point of view, the man doesn't commit himself, he plays on his friendly topics, where he cannot go wrong: drugs, thug, streets, braggadocio and, of course, sex. They're simple themes, but he just doesn't know how to handle them, interpret them and deliver them in order to keep a listener attentive for an entire album: he spits random bars without a precise meaning, here your attention should be lost around 40 seconds from the start of the listening, at most around the third song. Cappadonna shows no skills even from the technical point of view, and is overcome by most of the guests, who are all amateurs, friends and relatives: these guys are so unknown that Lounge Lo, Cappadonna's brother, passes as «Inspectah Deck protégé» for the insiders. Only the brother, at the debut in a studio album practically, tries to do worse than him every time in order to make him stand out and give him some help, and it's not easy, being also the major guest of the edition with four presents.
Confusing and exhausting album, long and bad, full of meaningless lyrics, shaky flows and forgettable tracks: it deserves to be better than it is, also because the rapper doesn't come from an easy situation. When the Staten Island group stops performing and do concerts, taking a break, Cappadonna is left homeless, wandering the streets of New York and finding a job as a taxi driver. This could be an album to gain redemption and demonstrate the anger he has kept, but there's nothing. The few hardcore stanzas that are there never arrive due to the production, and it's a shame: this is one of the worst studio albums ever released by an official Wu-Tang Clan member.
Rating: 3.5/10.
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