After releasing his second project, 9th Prince claims he wants to unseat the throne occupied by Lil Wayne and Jay-Z, intention reaffirmed during the album ("Sour Diesel"), with his personal revenge that coincides in his third CD, the one that should launch him among the great protagonists of the rap game. Pregnant pause.
9th Prince begins this prohibitive attempt to climb to the top of hip-hop, more suited to a video game than reality, with a name that is inspired by the antagonist character of an early 1980s Hong Kong kung-fu movie based on the Shaolin Temple starring Jason Pai Piao, and a reputation that sees him being considered the weakest emcee of the group he founded, behind Killa Sin, Dom Pachino, Kinetic 9 and ShoGun Assason. Helping Robert Diggs' young brother in this project is BP, who produces the entire record except for a beat by Monster, and a careful selection of guests from the Wu-Tang world that allows him to obtain Thea Van Seijen, Shyheim, Islord & Beretta 9 of Killarmy, William Cooper & Killah Priest of Black Market Militia, Boy Jones, Planet Asia and RZA.
Paragone does an honest job with the cover: the rapper is in the center, with his eyes saying "I don't even know how I got here, but now it's my turn", the title is in front with the author's name in which the "R" of "Prince" is a sword that curves to form the "W" of the Staten Island supergroup. Then you see it, can't you see it? Maybe you haven't seen it. The cover is dark, but a beam of light passes through something behind 9th Prince, it's a giant Wu-Tang Clan logo: minor details such as putting up a blow-up of that logo and then hiding it so well on the cover didn't help sales.
BP does a decent job in production, his rhythms are ok, nothing exceptional or too bad, without infamy and without praise. Lyrically, 9th Prince made the same record three times. Nothing changes since 2003, there are the same bars and the same hardcore, pseudo-thug tracks as always, with the same threats, and the same bragging lines. The disc suffers from excessive length, shows the author's flaws in the search for the lyrics and tends to reward the contribution of the guests, sometimes sensationally superior to the main rapper. "Revolution Music" stands out on the positive side favored by the best beat created by BP in this effort and a Planet Asia in shape, while "Dear R&B" is one of the worst tracks, where he dedicates effortless bars to his favorite female artists. "Love & Hate" is mind-blowing: here, the Killarmy rapper passionately expresses the things he hates in the first verse, like police, fake rappers, certain types of girls, "slow" cars (?), all those who helped send him to prison (there's no taxi driver, but it's implied), and in the second verse he reveals the things he loves, including other types of girls, "fast" cars (?) and strip clubs.
Originally scheduled to be released in 2004, as anticipated in the back cover of its debut, the album is postponed until six years later and is released through Wu Music and its label Granddaddy Flow Ent. 9th Prince fails in his intent and the album doesn't shake the charts, while his natural rivals Weezy and Hova send other records in first box (three apiece at the time of writing). Even removing the fact that the rapping shown in this LP is born "old" or the fact that the rhythms are generic, almost immediately canceling the replay value of each track, are the small details that clip the wings of the disc.
Rating: 5/10.
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