Arrested Development — Zingalamaduni

Total and annoying sophomore jinx by Arrested Development, an Atlanta hip-hop group consisting of Todd "Speech" Thomas, Timothy "DJ Headliner" Barnwell, and a dozen minor backing singers and performers. Headliner is credited with turntables, while Speech handles both rapping and production. The disc has no guests.

The record seems to start decently, not to say well: boom bap with decent samples, skit and sci-fi vibes. After two minutes, the listening irremediably worse and will hardly ever improve again for the remaining 52 minutes. There's a girl in the group's background vocalists, cheering on a crowd, it's Montsho Eshe, I guess, then the rapper spits something with a syncopated style on a bouncy boom bap with mediocre samples and also offers a lame hook. The track is simply some kind of bad crossover, however, the following one manages to do worse: female hook, random scratches, and a mediocre beat with weak sample, Speech says something about family unity with bland, flat rapping. The record seems to be able to recover in "United Front": boom bap funky, poor and dull sample, weak hook, but the rhythm is more accessible than usual, while Speech thematically engages on black-on-black violence, performing the texts with a listless delivery. It's almost a decent cut, then the disc returns to its normal level, which is very poor.

"Africa's Inside Me" presents a ridiculous musical carpet, a weak piano sample, a drum with no desire to work, it does its homework in a sloppy way, then Speech spits mediocrely on a sample that, the more the few minutes of the song pass, the more annoying it becomes. Track number six is among the worst of the edition: the boy delivers weakly on a deserted, desolate, quite poor rhythm, with a listless and skeletal drum and an annoying sample. The seventh choice has a weak production, with a bad sample and the usual listless drum, the interpreter offers weak bars. The next choice is weaker than usual, with an indecent soundscape consisting of the wrong and annoying sample and a listless drum, topped off with bad hook and mediocre light-hearted delivery, however, the album hits rock bottom and comes at its worst in "Warm Sentiments". On a ridiculous production, listless drum, annoying sample, Speech offers a wacky and awkward anti-abortion cut, where the lame hook doesn't help.

This is followed by random psychedelic sounds for a minute, then tribal sounds: in this case, when the guy isn't speaking, the listener gets the best performance of the CD, perhaps it's a coincidence. "In the Sunshine" boasts a poor boom bap achieved by mediocre samples and a syncopated and lean, pseudo-tribal drum: on this musical carpet, the rapper decides to offer bars with a poorly sung delivery style. It's an almost acceptable rnb choice, which precedes two other bad ones: poor rhythms, weak drums, pounding and slow, weak samples, poor deliveries. "Easy My Mind" is a little better than the project average, rnb crossover with lame delivery and decent beat. Finally, "Praisin' U" is the "masterpiece" of the tape, ironically: this guy sings out of tune and soporific over a sleepy rhythm. Unwilling drum, weak sample, weak hook, weak delivery: it's the perfect cut to sum up the record, very boring and bland, although you can see how much the guy is trying to come up with something decent.

Released by EMI via Chrysalis, the album is considered a flop both from a commercial and a critical point of view. It reaches the top 20 among rap records and doesn't go beyond box number 55 in the pop chart, disappointing the label's high commercial expectations. Specialized critics welcome the album with mixed reviews: except for few hilarious exceptions, which bases its arguments on the previous album and their most successful single two years earlier, the experts immediately understand the sloppiness of the project. In particular, it's funny and beautiful the choice of Spin magazine to review this disk with a yellow card, props to the authors Brian Keizer and Craig Marks, I recommend reading their review, which is very apt. Despite a rotation of topics that on paper should be competent, this work of 15 songs and 54 minutes total, is boring and soporific, makes you fall asleep: it's not incisive and it's not energetic, it always sounds banal, positive but slow, exhausting. It's closer to being a rnb record than hip-hop, featuring one of the worst productions of the year coupled with one of the worst rapping of the year: Speech can't rap and makes an ignorant album that doesn't make you laugh, a sort of West Coast hippie hip-hop version, embarrassing and ridiculous.

Rating: 3/10.