Red Hot Lover Tone — #1 Player

Second album by Samuel "Red Hot Lover Tone" Barnes aka Tone of Trackmasterz, three years after its debut. Production is provided by Tone, Silver D, Diamond D, Buckwild, Frank Nitty, Greg Nice and Rog Nice, while guests are Big Daddy Kane, Rich Nice, M.O.P., The Notorious B.I.G., Organized Konfusion, Greg Nice (uncredited in "Wanna Make Moves"), Charlie Brown (uncredited in "Bust tha Maneuva"), and Don Baron.

Tone creates thirteen tracks (two remixes) for a total of three quarters of an hour of listening and, as in his previous tape, continues to deliver kinky and abundantly boring sexual bars. Unlike the first LP, his rhythms play in his favor: the boy chooses honest and light loops, jazzy, with midtempo drums, spitting with an elementary, calm, slow style. In some moments, the beats sound enveloping and elegant, then in the second part of the disc the DITC influence becomes very strong and xmas bells arrive in every track, even without looking at the tracklist you can understand that there's the imprint of at least one of the producers of the collective there.

All the guests are easily superior to the main rapper, Big Daddy Kane and Rich Nice provide a first highlight in "In the Game", on light jazzy samples and midtempo drum, then comes the peak "4 My Peeps". The cut, featured twice, is a posse that boasts M.O.P., The Notorious B.I.G. and Organized Konfusion: on a simple Buckwild rhythm with classic vibes, hard, dry, heavy and midtempo drum machine, honest samples, xmas bells in the background, the guys spit out bars with an energetic and regular rap. Biggie Smalls flies effortlessly, velvety, flow dope, the others do well too. The absences of Billy Danze of M.O.P. and of Pharaohe Monch of Organized Konfusion are surprising: the MC from Brownsville arrives in the other remix, at the end of the album, exchanging a couple of verses with Lil' Fame, while Monch isn't present even there. Released by Select Records, the tape is Tone's second and last before continuing his career exclusively as a producer.

Rating: 6/10.