Tone-Lōc — Cool Hand Loc

If I had that bomb-flop emoticon, it would be easier. I have no idea how it adds up here, wait, wait, here we are: 💣

In any case the second album by Tone-Loc is really a sophomore jinx. The production is created by Matt Dike and Michael Ross, along with M. Walk, Tone Loc, Sir Jinx, and Tony Joseph, and instrumentals played by Scott Mayo (sax), Dave Forman (bass, guitar), Jason White (keyboards), John Rogers (keyboards), Howie Robbins (keyboards), Kevin O'Neil (bass), Ron Jeffreys (keyboards), Stuart Wylen (bass), Phillip Gordy (keyboards) and Herman Jackson (piano). The guests are El DeBarge, Kenyatta, Def Jef and MC Wink Dog.

The new golden boy, the wunderkind of the wonderful platinum series, focuses his new effort on hip house, like most players, but isn't so coherent as to base his entire effort on this crossover genre. When you open "Funky Westside" you understand that something isn't working: removed the hip house rhythm and the rapper's slow and syncopated delivery, why pay a tribute to Bob Marley and place a Kenyatta R&B hook (uncredited, like the other guests), I mean, what do you want to do? This rambling mixture of ideas helps to distort the identity of this disk to the point of making it unrecognizable.

Some songs are better than others, thanks to the choristers and some well-chosen jazzy / soul samples, but most don't work: by popular demand, the ballad new jack arrives to kill the record ("All Through the Night"). "Mean Green" is probably the best tune, hardly saved by the regular, smooth, technically clean and dope delivery of Def Jef, which I didn't understand for what reason it's not credited. His new jack / hip house production here is decent, better than usual, and Donna Simon's soul chorus helps slide the piece. All the rest is practically low-league pop rap, with braggadocio lyrics, gangsta bars and ballads all recited effortlessly over other hip house production provided by Matt Dike & Michael Ross: overall, it's a bad, uninspired and weak album.

Distributed by Delicious Vynil, rejected by crowds with both hands, the rapper who two years earlier had two rap hits both certified platinum and was coming off a multi-platinum number one album on the Billboard 200, the song with DeBarge was chosen as the lead single and received widespread media coverage, yet it did not peak at number eighty on the Hot 100. Nothing seems to have changed from two seasons ago, yet everything has. The game has toughened. Even Tone Loc tries his hand at the streets, and his second album is extremely forced, failing to find his own path between the street and romantic songs. He tries to match the concrete, but fails miserably and ends his career in the music industry prematurely.

Rating: 3/10.