Three years is a long time in hip-hop, a genre that was constantly evolving in the nineties. In 1990, LL Cool J returns stronger than ever and publishes his best work, a leading document on the East Coast circuit. Three years later, he's a mediocre and obscene West Coast copycat. The MC, one of the best in the game until a few years ago, hasn't stayed up to date and is no longer relevant: the top of the Billboard charts that he dominated are now frequented by artists who shout violent things all the time on hard funky beats. LL, tired of innovating, try to do the same, how difficult will it be?
Production is signed by Marley Marl, DJ Bobcat and QDIII, with Andrew Zanable and Chris Forte co-producing a track. Marley Marl has produced three albums entirely in three years, has practically stopped making beats, he has no more desire: to make the rhythms of LL's new album, he copies almost exactly the ones from the previous CD and places less memorable samples on top of them that sound as close to the West Coast as possible. Half of the recording on the disc is made in California. The drum is skeletal and raw, hard, like in 1990. Or better, like in 1985, the drums patterns aren't too different from those of his debut. There are jazzy and soul samples scattered everywhere, but the mix tries to stifle them all, although the best try in every way to make their voices heard (above all, Bert Kaempfert's beautiful trumpet in "Wonderland by Night", used for "Funkadelic Relic"; that if you don't pay too much attention, you lose, a clear sign that something went wrong in the construction of the rhythms of Marl & Co.). At their worst, the beats sound like blurry copies of the Bomb Squad production ("Ain't No Stoppin' This").
Rap is almost exclusively braggadocio, with numerous sexual contents. LL Cool J continually brags, flexes muscles and approaches aggressive delivery style, overly energetic, tight, hardcore, on some tracks he seems to be screaming all the time. He sounds like a weak Ice Cube who spits random things out over shoddy rhythms. Three years late. In his rap there's a lot of senseless anger and even more confusion, the boy is exasperated, the record is stiff, completely plastered: he has lost his status as a trend-setter and is now forced to jump onto the last available bandwagon. The g-funk one has already left the parade, the ruined gangsta one remains, filthy, rotten, completely ruined, the stray rappers have pissed everywhere, LL jumps, but it's like he's got on the sickest, cheapest, poorest and most mundane gangsta bandwagon plus, it's like it's the wrong parade.
While Lt. Stitchie's ragga very frankly doesn't interest me, the record's only rap guests, the Lords of the Underground, outclass the rapper in "(NFA) No Frontin' Allowed", on one of the few beats worthy of the name, a jazz boom bap where Marley Marl randomly hits all the elements and there's a good rap from someone. To note that the "Diggy Down" dancehall ballad is the best tune of the edition. The product closes appropriately with "Crossroads": storm, I guess, then comes a real live orchestra. There's an orgy of violins, still storm, on the strings. Suddenly, a very hard, tight drum machine emerges from nowhere and a guy starts imitating B-Real by shouting on the strings for three minutes. There are five girls in the background for the hook. The end result of these dull 65 minutes is an inadmissible retrograde mess.
Released by Def Jam and Columbia, it's the third album at the peak of rap records, coming fifth on the Billboard 200, ranking on three continents and earning gold certification in three months. Critics panned the project, no competent professional reviewer could appreciate LL's constant vicious inserts, not even in retrospect. Irregular, scarce, cumbersome record, devoted to pop rap and to the rankings at all costs, it marks the end of LL Cool J's career as a top rap artist.
Rating: 5/10.
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