Murs & 9th Wonder — Sweet Lord

"If it's not broken, kick it in the belly and it'll work even better than before, with any luck." And with that proverb, with that state of mind, 9th Wonder & Murs get to work on their collaborative album number three in four years. The rapper from Los Angeles, California, pulls out this album by releasing it for free on the internet as a "gift" and, in return, he asks the three people who have listened to it to go and buy his next album.

With this LP fresh from the fridge — it has been ready for over a year, both of them know very well that it doesn't have the qualities to be a good LP in 2007, while Soulja Boy is still first in the Hot 100 — Murs wants to celebrate his signing with Warner Bros. and the future release of his first album with a major label. You feel the fear that Murs has as he makes that video where he's begging his few listeners to go buy that damn album, the fear of being dumped by Warner even before releasing the record. This has happened before. To many. It doesn't happen to him, luckily. Carter x Douthit's third effort is still composed by ten tracks, still half an hour, still on women, the mainly topic also of this album by Murs & 9th Wonder.

The rapper, with his rounded, monochord flow, is much better off than usual when he rests on his laurels and recites lyrics that cover that topic, especially when 9th Wonder is more inspired behind the keyboards and brings out discreet, discreet, chipmunk soul beats, not excessively good. The producer here seems to be at that stage that you might call "Apollo Brown block", it's at a time when the rhythms all sound the same, often sound good, but are virtually indistinguishable from each other. He has practically done three identical albums with Murs, the rare difference in this third project is that the drum is leaner, harsher and hits harder. These productions are subpar, except for the ballads / women's tracks (everything runs beautifully on "It's for Real", best beat of the edition), the rest doesn't sound particularly good.

Overall, the album sounds effortless and monotonous, it appears to be run on autopilot, is soulless: only a couple of professional reviewers bother to write something about this project, the others have forgotten and dismissed the fact that these two guys, together, until a couple of years earlier, were among the most popular in the underground hip-hop circuit. 5/10.