The great success of his album "Don Cartagena" and that of Big Pun "Capital Punishment", lead both emcees to appears on Jennifer Lopez' album "On the 6", for the track "Feelin' So Good". In the same period, Fat Joe launches the debut disk of his group Terror Squad, which fails to make inroads into the market and build a niche of fans. Big Pun's subsequent death of heart attack leaves a heavy mark on the rapper, who in the same period saw his group break up, Armageddon, Cuban Link and one of his ghostwriters Triple Seis have parted ways with Terror Squad label due to internal conflicts with Atlantic Records and with the same Fat Joe.
The Diggin' in the Crates Crew emcee gets up again releasing his fourth LP. Buckwild, Ron G and Irv Gotti sign a couple of rhythms each, the rest of the music set is builded by Psycho Les of The Beatnuts, Cool & Dre, Self, Reef, Chink Santana, Bink, Rockwilder, DJ Nasty & LVM, The Alchemist, Delano "Sean C" Matthews and Richard "Younglord" Frierson, both part of Puff Daddy production team The Hitmen. Remy Ma is the main guest of the LP, and later also replaces the departing members of Terror Squad on the group's new album. The other guests are Buju Banton, R. Kelly, MOP, Petey Pablo, Ashanti, Ja Rule, Prospect, Armageddon, Ludacris, Xzibit, Busta Rhymes and Noreaga.
The production's divided between the hardcore and the club. The CD itself isn't as bad as it sounds, but there are many gaps starting from Joe's lyrics — his writing has clearly taken a hit following the loss of his best ghostwriters, Big Pun and Triple Seis, and the fact that they were evidently not adequately replaced to create the songs for this effort — until his tired-like delivery, the annoying productions ("J.O.S.E."), bouncy and mediocre choices behind the keyboards ("Opposites Attract").
The musical consistency of the product is cut short by the rapper himself who for each hardcore track he places two for the club: some work, like "What's Luv?" where Irv Gotti dirty the song with a bit of light soul, helped by the soul-R&B intro of guests including Ashanti — preferred to JLo —, others less so, such as when Bink disappoints heavily by pulling out a production that seems to come from a videogame and the words of the rappers lose their sense in "Get the Hell on with That".
In particular "What's Luv?", extract as second single of the LP, turns out to be a global hit, bringing Fat Joe back to the top spot on rap singles eight years after his debut with "Flow Joe", first among hip-hop singles in UK, #2 on the Hot 100, in Switzerland, in the Australian Urban chart and #4 in Europe. The single is one of the top-seller of 2002 in half Europe, Australia, the fourth among rap songs in UK and the eighth in US.
Immediately afterwards comes Sean Cane's "It's OK" and even this one doesn't work: in the wake of the previous one, Cartagena delivers awry on an annoying beat. The level's raised by a killer verse of Armageddon in "Murder Rap", where on an apathetic soundscape of Rockwilder, Joe decides to throws a jab to Def Jam. Remy Ma brings back some freshness all over the world but never really adds anything to the songs.
As for the hardcore songs, Buckwild and Younglord do everything they can to put on decent productions, but Fat Joe's delivery here's shaky with an unsupported flow ("My Lifestyle") here pseudo-hardcore, making his style hardbored: Prospect exceeds him in "He's Not Real", after an avoidable attack to Cuban Link. "Fight Club" should be one of the discounted bangers of the record, M.O.P. start strong with a bit of ignorant rap, Joe doesn't hold up with his kindergarten rhyme schemes, Petey Pablo angrily closes at the end; the track doesn't value.
Among of "The Wild Life" (Xzibit is the best among Fat Joe and Prospect) and the mediocre remix of "We Thuggin'" (hook killed by R. Kelly in the original, #15 in the Hot 100: worth the first commercial hit for Fat Joe), Joe decides to release a second edition of "The Shit Is Real": the job this time is left to Buckwild who pulls out a heavy boom bap, cheerful, with a sad, bitter aftertaste. Joe pays tribute again to Pun and delivery with this mood, hardcore with a veil of sadness, maybe it's the best track on the record but the title ("Still Real") makes it even the most fake.
"King of N.Y." deserves a special mention. Everyone likes that movie, aight. It'll be up to posterity to understand how it's possible that it hasn't broken through and has gone to only $ 2.5 million at box office. Here Joe re-proposes the title and places Cool & Dre on it, their job's to provide a jazzy boom bap while the Bronx emcee delivers a cumbersome hardcore verses, Buju Banton provides a disturbing reggae hook traced by Joe in what could be defined as the best track of the album. If it weren't... that here he proclaims himself «King of NY»... what the?!
Released by Terror Squad Production and Atlantic Records under Warner Music Group, the album marks Fat Joe's jump in the mainstream: adequately promoted by the major, leaded only by two singles ("We Thuggin'" and "What's Luv?"), the disk enters the charts of three continents, peaking #6 in the hip-hop chart of US and Canada, providing the best performance in the UK (#19 in the pop chart, #5 among rap records; is certified silver in six months) and becoming one of the best-selling rap albums in its homeland and Canada. Gold in three months, first and only platinum album certified by RIAA after six. He'll never go down from this boat, even if he'll never get another certification from one of his album again. 18 cuts, 5 solos, the rest are featuring half with his Terror Squad half with artists trying to make sales from their niche of fans: R. Kelly, MOP, Ja Rule, Petey Pablo, Ludacris, Xzibit, Busta and Noreaga. Remy Ma plays the lion's share on this record, the one that should probably have been reserved for Pun. Listening to this record in a row after his previous three in a single take could be really shocking.
Rating: 5.5/10.
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