After releasing three LPs with his Brand Nubian group through Elektra, Derek "Sadat X" Murphy signs with Loud and releases his solo debut. Although he's able to hold a disk on his own, he decides to call several friends to support him and shows up solo for only a third of the time.
The label provides him with an evidently limited budget, due to which Sadat X is forced to focus on production, getting beats from DITC (Buckwild, Diamond D & Showbiz), Da Beatminerz and Pete Rock, among others, giving up on having big names for guest slots and remedying on friends, with Shawn Black as major guest, the Money Boss Players, and boasting Grand Puba in one track.
The emcee deviates from political themes and releases an honest and excessively long album with over an hour of material. The music, while coming from some of the best beatmakers on the circuit, is little more than discreet, no one is trying to give Murphy their best and the samples are nothing memorable: this allows the Beatminerz to arrive with what is probably the best beat on the record in "The Interview". Ali Malek's work for "Hang 'Em High" deserves a mention, as he fails to adequately flip a short loop extracted from one of Morricone's best works.
Released by Loud Records and RCA Records, distributed by BMG, the tape is leaded by a couple of singles, "Hang 'Em High" (#12 on the rap chart) and "The Lump Lump" (fifth on the dance chart), going well on charts, stopping out the top ten among hip-hop disks. Tepidly received, nothing on this CD stands out in a hip-hop scene at the height of creativity.
Rating: 7/10.
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