Just-Ice aka The Desolate Just-Ice seems to be going strong, really strong, on this album: the first cut, which is the title track, features a skeletal and tight jazzy beat, light and minimal drum machine; spoken skit, then clear and slow hardcore delivery.
The production of KRS-One is fit with Just-Ice flow. Instead, it's only the typical illusion of the first song. The rest is simply mediocre. But that's fine, because Just-Ice delivers hardcore and slow on honest funky beats, it's still a decent album. Ehm, no. When the production starts to quickly become generic, the rapper decides to supply the remaining cuts with a reggae / raggamuffin style of delivery: the only problem is that he doesn't know how to do it, a mediocre weak and tasteless sound comes out, brought down by some of the most embarrassing lyrics of the decade in hip-hop. The disc isn't to be thrown away — on "Hijack" it returns hardcore, a decent jazzy cut — I'd save "The Desolate One", the rest is very questionable.
The production is handled by Just-Ice and KRS, the effort is co-produced by D-Nice (Boogie Down Productions) and DJ Doc (tied w/ BDP), almost entirely mixed by KRS-One. The record obtains good results in sales in US (#19 in the rnb chart and one of the best-selling records of the whole season), and in UK, peaking #16 among independent albums, released by Sleeping Bag Records, distributed even in France (Fresh), Germany (Fresh / Torso) and Netherlands (Torso).
A few years later, Bradley Nowell of the American ska punk band Sublime formed in Long Beach, California, brings the vinyl of this Just-Ice album during an interview at a radio station and has the DJ play a random track from the record, "Na Touch Da Just".
Rating: 5/10.
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