After the breakup of the EPMD duo, Erick Sermon Makes Dollars Without Parrish. His production is jazzy-funky, lo-fi and energetic, and there are guests able to enhance the tracks, such as Keith Murray at the debut, Ice Cube and Redman, however, Parrish Smith's absence is felt: Sermon's pen isn't strong enough to be able to hold up an album for nearly an hour, and the record soon becomes monotonous and dull. The boy focuses everything on battle rap and braggadocio, giving some songs for women and party tracks that work little and badly, and he's often helped by external performers. He still does well behind keyboards, making an accessible and solid production.
After the first discreet tracks, with some good rhythms and bars here and there, "Hostile" is the first strong point of the tape. Jeffrey Stewart intro, jazzy boom bap, slow tight drum, slow spoken delivery by Erick Sermon, then Keith Murray destroys the cut with a fluid hardcore style, closes Stewart's outro. The next five tracks aren't particularly inspired, and slowly lead the listener to the second section, the strongest of the LP. The duo Shadz of Lingo from Richmond, Virginia, debuts in the rap game in "Lil' Crazy", on a tight production of Sermon, full of weak samples, then the best moments of the tape arrive.
"The Ill Shit" boasts a jazzy boom bap with good samples and slow, pounding drum machine: Sermon opens the song, then Ice Cube easily annihilates it with a relaxed, slow, effortless, smoothness delivery style, Kam closes the song performing smooth hardcore. Keith Murray & Redman are the guests of "Swing It Over Here": minimal soundscape, jazzy, slow and tight drum, Murray drops the first verse with energy, good flow, then the former EPMD rapper delivers slow and spoken; in the third verse, Redman makes a crazy entrance, goes away and taking the cut, tearing it with force and an unstoppable hardcore flow.
The skit placed as track number 15 boasts a ballad rhythm with new jack swing vibes, typical elevator music that you don't expect from a pro of Sermon's caliber. "Female Species" features a jazzy rhythm similar to the previous ones, with an inspired poo delivery and I think, I believe, badly sampled Christmas bells in the background, because they hardly sound like Christmas bells: DITC producers would certainly have done better here.
It's useful to make a digression to the previous choice, "All in the Mind", which I kept for last because it explains better than all the other tracks the problems of the whole project. Erick Sermon makes one of his best productions on his debut album: boom bap jazzy and minimal, with an excellent dark sample, few have been as good on this CD, it seems to have been pulled from one of the Skinny Pimp tapes straight from Memphis.
Now, just need someone who can rap on it. And Sermon isn't that person, he's not at that height, he doesn't exactly know what to do with his own rhythm: his style of delivery is the same as always, monotonous, slow, spoken, bored, he doesn't adequately exploit this rhythm, to which the performer could easily adapt by making him more disturbing or simply kill him. Sermon does neither and the end result leaves much to be desired.
In practically all these fifty minutes of listening, the feeling is the same: Sermon creates good rhythms, but his rapping style is decent, generic and never punchy. The record is decent, but not good, despite the wide commercial success (top 20 among pop records, #2 in the rap chart), also found thanks to the Def Jam distribution: except for the tracks with the guests, listening isn't essential and it's not necessary, it makes us regret the records with Parrish Smith.
Highlights: "Stay Real", "Hostile", "The Ill Shit", "Swing It Over Here".
Rating: 6.5/10.
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