Solomon Childs, rapper from West Brighton, Staten Island, New York on one of his early mixtapes. There's uncertainty about the original release year, it doesn't matter. There are no production credits, among the many to support him in these twenty songs, are Mary J. Blige, Tierra Marie — rnb singer who had a LP with Roc-A-Fella as a teenager — RZA and Ghostface Killah of Wu-Tang Clan, Lord Superb of American Cream Team and Cappadonna, Wu-Tang affiliated emcee who with Solomon Childs and Ghostface Killah is part of the Tony Starks' group Theodore Unit.
The mixtape isn't well structured, as well as an obvious lack of mixing (only in 2022 there was a remastering of all the projects released by the rapper, so this tape also gets a much better audio quality than in the past), the choice of music is average and a bit tasteless, even if it's not exclusively centered on East Coast beats, while the lyrics fall flat. On this subject, a treatise should be made on how much "Supreme Clientele" has influenced a large part of the underground emcees, including many Wu-Tang affiliates.
Even without going into how much Lord Superb, featured here on "Takin Up Some Space", struggled to claim that he was the main writer on that record, we can dwell on Solomon Childs, for a short time a member of the Theodore Unit led by Ghostface, who here allows himself the luxury of leaving songs half-finished and deliver verses that can be defined without any logical sense and that at the same time feel derived directly from the stream of consciousness present in that masterpiece released in 2000.
Solomon Childs spits hardcore and thug, carving out sentimental and personal moments, and homages to ODB and Luther Vandross, which have a marginal space compared to bravado and gangster bars, also going against the (fake-)gangster rappers ("Pitt Mobb Freestyle 2", the second part of the song is rapped to the beat of "Feel Me" by Jadakiss). Overall, the project is negligible given the hefty volume of the rapper's discography, as well as falling woefully far from his potential.
Rating: 4/10.
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