Bronx-born emcee Reminisce "Remy Ma" Smith emerges from a complicated childhood, becomes passionate about hip-hop and is discovered by Big Pun, that launches her career in the music industry making her debut in the tracks "Ms. Martin" and "You Was Wrong" from his album "Yeeeah Baby" (2000). After Big Pun's death, Remy Ma signs with Fat Joe's label Terror Squad Entertainment, under Steve Rifkind's SRC Records and Universal, becoming a new member of the group Terror Squad.
The rapper participate to the posthumous album of Big L "The Big Picture" (2000), in Fat Joe's "Loyalty" (2002) and appears on the remix of MOP's "Ante Up", giving a sensational performance on a track that was later included in "10 Years and Gunnin'" (2003). Remy Ma is then protagonist of the second studio album of the Terror Squad group "True Story" (2004) and she's noted for the group's hit "Lean Back" with Fat Joe, the single topped Hot 100 and obtains a Grammy nomination. It's a perfect springboard to launch her solo career in the recording industry, Steve Rifkind is pushing for the first solo CD of Remy Martin. In 2006 is released her debut studio album in the sixth anniversary of Big Punisher's death. The title and cover art are inspired by an almost homonymous movie released in 1998.
The disk is produced by a team of beatmakers producers already known to Fat Joe fans, because they are practically the same guys who worked on his most recent albums: Buckwild, Cool & Dre, Swizz Beatz, Scott Storch, Scram Jones, Knobody, LV, David Banner, The Don Bishop, J-Notes, Sean C., Emile, The Alchemist and Che Harris. The guests are Big Pun, Fat Joe, Ne-Yo, Ivy Queen and Keyshia Cole.
Big Pun opens the album in the intro without beat, then Buckwild pulls out a sad soul boom bap where Remy Ma delivers hardcore. After "Tight", a boom bap synthesized by Cool & Dre with Joe on the hook and a couple of hardcore lines dropped by Remy, the album falls in a poor central part starting with Swizz's confused gloomy "Whuteva".
"Conceited" presents a Scott Storch's weak Middle Eastern boom bap that steals directly from the Neptunes in an attempt to create the next summer hit after Storch's huge success "Lean Back". The Bronx emcee creates the track in Miami with Scott Storch for what should be the album's banger. Remy Ma's labelmate at SRC Records David Banner is called to realize the beat for "I'm", bouncy, trivial production which does not reward the rough performance style of the young rapper from the Bronx.
J-Notes is the beatmaker credited for "Secret Location", simply poorly realized rhythm. These three tracks are pretty banal, grey tunes where Remy Ma seems to delivers poorly/weakly. Among these, "Feels So Good" and "Thug Love" stand out. The first one has a boom bap soul tense invented by LV (of Puff Daddy's production team the Hitmen) & Knobody, with Ne-Yo on the soul hook and Remy Ma that delivers calmly, fluently.
"Thug Love" boasts a light, soul, essential soundscape by Alchemist, with Big Punishier as guest: hard not to consider it one of the highlights of the CD. In the last part, the album improves with "Bilingual" ft. Ivy Queen, dirty track over a good dark beat created by LV, "Crazy" with its soul boom bap realized by Emile, "What's Going On", where the main emcee delivers determined with a soulful chorus performed by Keyshia Cole over a precise beat by Che Harris, and "Still", among the best beats ever dropped by Cool & Dre, a jazzy soul production with piano looped in background, Remy delivers smoothly.
Released by Terror Squad Entertainment, SRC Records and Universal Records, distributed by the major UMG, the album arrives second in the rap chart (#7 among rnb records, #33 in the pop chart) and is welcomed positively by specialized critics, enthusiastic to find themselves in front of the new female promise of the rap game, who has already had the opportunity to confront her rivals, inaugurating a long-lasting feud with one of the main artists of the period, Foxy Brown.
However, the album churns out low numbers compared to the author's artistic expectations, selling around 35.000 physical copies in its first week (around 150.000 in one year), also due to poor promotion received from her labels, with three singles struggling to find their way among the crowd. While "Whuteva", released in the summer 2006, was still searching for its target audience in the market, the labels publish "Conceited" in the following December, which overshadows the previous single. Remy Ma accuses Universal of these gross errors in the promotion of his album, also creating a rift with Fat Joe.
After struggling to make the music videos for her first two singles ("Whuteva" and "Conceited"), Remy Ma should prepare that one for the third single, "Feel So Good". For the piece, Fat Joe hires the rnb singer Mario that arrives from the #1 platinum of "Let Me Love You", to sing the chorus. Despite this, Remy Ma insists on having the newcomer Ne-Yo for her track and after the resistance of his record executives (Fat Joe and Steve Rifkind), Remy Ma gets it right, and Ne-Yo is on the track, nevertheless he can't appear in the music video because participated in the Ghostface Killah's single "Back Like That" ("Fishscale") and the label Def Jam doesn't allow Ne-Yo to shoot the music video for Remy Ma's single. The visual of music video should be scheduled to film in Dominican Republic, but was never resumed due to Remy Ma with problems that lead her to cut ties ending all business deals with both her labels, SRC and Terror Squad Entertainment.
Remy Ma solo album is launched by the success of Terror Squad's "Lean Back", and is composed by banal rhythms, functional hooks, and dully lyrics. Production is also a sore point for the author, who antagonizes part of the industry, negatively and openly criticizing the guys who propose the rhythms to her. This record is saved with a good final part, for the rest it's quite average gangsta-braggadocio and with various tracks for the club and for the street poorly executed, with few lights and many shadows.
Highlights: "Feels So Good", "Thug Love", "What's Going On", "Still".
Rating: 6/10.
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