Bravehearts — Bravehearted

Wo, wo, wo, wo, what up son? What up G? Debut studio album of one of the most forgotten groups, rightly so, in rap. Bravehearts, East Coast hip-hop straight outta Queensbridge, New York. Originally, the group is formed by Jabari "Jungle" Jones, brother of Nas, Mike "Wiz" Epps & E. "Horse" Gray. You know both, at the time of the biggest feud the East Coast has ever seen, the one between the two Kings of New York Nas and Jay-Z, Hova claims that Horse's verse and flow are better than those of his rival in the hit "Oochie Wally", gold certificated in which Wiz also participated.

Shortly before the release of the album, in 2002, Horse left the group, which became a duo. The production is made by the producer of "Illmatic" L.E.S. and by other guys certainly not to that level, like Bastiany, Lil Jon, Midi Mafia, Neo the Matrix, Paul Poli, Ez Elpee, Swiss Beatz and Jungle itself. Nas is the main guest with five appearances, followed by Nashawn with three, Jully Black, Lil Jon, and Teedra Moses with one each.

The album starts. Track number 01, "Intro", second number 00:00: there are two voices that overlap one on top of the other, you don't understand, and we are at the second number zero, at the second number zero! The album started less than a second, maybe it's zero point eight seconds or something, and it's already an absurd mess. Second number three: there's a third voice in the background. Oh, man. Nas? Perhaps. Second number seven: other voices are added to the background, it's impossible to understand what they say in the introduction. On track number two, there's the sound of a steam train, I think. Tribute to the "Illmatic" intro and to that monorail? Impossible to know for sure. I assume that's right because the albums are related. I mean, it says "NaS" on both covers. Midi Mafia puts on the track a rhythm so bad it makes you feel ashamed. Then come Jungle & Wiz, man, they're gangsters, yo, with some bars that must make you wonder if they wrote them or if there are some too-much-paid ghostwriters behind them:

"I broke a nigga back with a baseball bat!

I crack ya fucking skull, you'll need a body bag"

"They wanna war when I'm doin' my thang

I got ice on, chains and rings and things

If you dont smoke purple, you can't hang"

It's hard to go through this for four minutes without laughing out loud every ten seconds. Or have a severe headache. In the next song, finally, comes a beat made by a real professional, Lil Jon. Unfortunately, there's a guy who starts screaming like a madman looking for a dose of crack. It's still Lil Jon. Nas arrives, more concentrated and capable of all those who will perform on this album after him and, in the midst of the feud, he immediately takes a shot at his rival. He immediately adapts to the southern beat of Lil Jon and kills the cut with an immortal flow, amazing, dope. Jungle & Wiz aren't at that level unfortunately, but for a southern track in the crunk period, it's not a choice to throw away. The next track is "Twilight". Swizz Beatz almost makes a good beat here, almost. The choice of the sample is good, but then the boy combines it with a rough, annoying, very heavy drum machine, which makes the sample useless and dominates the silky voice of the interpreter, who in this case is Escobar again.

Bravehearts complete the song and open the title track: for the third consecutive time, Nasir Jones is present on the album. Jungle's beat boasts a good sax taken from Average White Band's "Would You Stay" (or the Jungle Brothers song that samples from there) and pairs it with a scandalous drum: more random thug / gangster bars come in from Wiz & Jungle, Nasty Nas closes with a lyric, a flow, and a delivery that you get to hear very rarely on an album of such a low standard. He's excessively superior to the other two rappers and has no trouble proving it: it is as if he raps purposely concentrated and better than usual to obscure them even more and to show everyone how much better he is. He does a great job. Somewhere you might read that these are phoned verses, but they didn't hear the album that well. I don't pity them. I wouldn't do it either.

Gangster Sexual Interlude, then "Buss My Gun": Midi Mafia brings a nasty, inaccessible and hard-to-deal rhythm to support a random track on generic gangsterisms featuring Jungle, Nas's cousin Nashawn Jones, and Wiz. Nashawn stays for the next track, "Cash Flow", on a terrible production by Lil Jon, who murders the beat with one of the worst drum choices of the year. Bastiany makes a livable beat for "Situations": hook rnb, there have been some so far performed by the singers, but I can't find the credits. The beat is meager and bouncy, cheap and poor, a track for girls with Nas who closes by singing before a final eight. Then, another sexual skit. "I Wanna" is the beat of L.E.S.: bouncy and poor rhythm, piece that was born for the club, Wiz & Jungle just can't write a decent text, their bravado on girls is very uninspired. The hook, well, would embarrass Lil Kim & Foxy Brown put together. Okay, maybe I'm exaggerating. But it's excessively ridiculous.

"Sensation": Midi Mafia's beat isn't evil. Finally, this guy got a beat right: boom bap, cheap drum, poor sample, I don't know why, but the production goes on. However, the hook is even worse than the one performed for "I Wanna" and man, I don't know how that is possible, but it was really hard to make it worse. Jungle & Wiz are at that level though. This is another cut for the club on girls. Neo plays decent and honest rhythm for "Realize", Teedra Moses chorus, Nashawn good opening verse, even the Bravehearts, for some unknown reason, they seem inspired and confident here. There's one of the few non-sexual hooks on the entire album. Neo produces the last track, bouncy and mediocre rhythm on which the two rappers spit their latest gangster bars on the album.

It's not over, because as a bonus track, the guys, peace to them, play the remix of "Oochie Wally". Yes. Great, great. It's beautiful. Ez Elpee's shoddy and messy soundscape, it's similar to any of the Neptunes, it's like Pharrell and Chad said "this [rhythm] sucks so much for us too and for our already ridiculous standards, it's better if we give it to anybody else". Ez Elpee takes it and turns it into a local hit: four stanzas, Nas, Wiz, Jungle and Horse, who eats the cut with a crazy, confident, miraculous flow, he even obscures Nas, closing the cut really in style. For once after thousands of words, I'm not ironic, the man really does something sublime and he has the second-best flow on the album.

The LP ends after a 43-minute marathon, 15 tracks, an intro, a bonus, two interludes. It comes out as "Nas & Ill Will Records Presents Bravehearts", for the record. Few days before xmas zero three, Nas releases it on his own label, Ill Will Records, and with Sony, via Columbia. What? Yes, this is a major release, ladies and gentlemen. MAJOR. For the Bravehearts. This is possibly one of the worst, wow... wait, there's a 3/5 by Allmusic, wait a moment, watch out, let me read what Johnny Loftus writes, before continuing, I'm gonna change my mind. Ah, nothing important. The guys didn't even understand how many times Nas raps on this record and write that the group comes out of Nas' long shadow when the whole project proves the exact opposite. Esco's present in five tracks, in three there's his cousin, to his brother and the other rapper remain four true solo songs. It's hard to step out of the shadows when you have so few tracks that sucks so much from every single point of view.

What was I saying? Ok, ok, major release. Incredible, right? Jungle and Wiz are not two world champions of rapping, their flow is sparse and cumbersome, their lyricism is elementary and weak, they can't get along well with their fourth-level braggadocio and thug, third-level relegation zone at their best. Nashawn, future member of the group, is on a similar level, so, the project is carried out exclusively by Nas. Removed the opening track with the rhythm halfway between imitating a train and beatboxing, the first part of the album is quite decent. When the revered MC steps aside, the CD collapses hopelessly under the low blows of producers and rappers and chorus who are among the worst of the decade, any genre of music. The chart says the record made it onto the Billboard 200 and made it into the top twenty among rap albums. There's no valid rationale to check this album out, so, unless you've lost a painful bet, please, please, please do yourself a favor and don't listen to it. Please.

Highlights: Nas' verses.

Rating: 2/10.