MC Shan — Play It Again Shan

On his third album, MC Shan shows up with a self-produced project without the help of his friend Marley Marl, which leave after the producer advised him not to continue dissing with KRS-One and his group, letting him win the battle. Behind the keyboards, Marl is replaced by John Ficarrotta. The absence of decent samples is immediately felt, unfortunately it's not only that the only problem of Shan's last effort.

The production is too varied to offer a coherent sound, MC Shan tries all genres to try to break into the mainstream: the usual simple and minimal funky rhythms, sometimes frantic or skinny, are almost completely replaced by beat disco dance-pop house ("Ain't Good to You", "It Ain't a Hip Hop Record"), pop dance / disco ("I Want to Thank You", "How I Feel About You"), funky pop ("Death Was Quite a Surprise", "It Don't Mean a Thing") and pop rock ("Walking on Sunshine"), up to the final ballad ("How I Feel About You"), while the rare funky production are pretty weak and also have dance elements ("I Ran the Game", "Ain't We Funkin'").

When Shan is aiming musically on the hip house, a decent beat comes out in "Time for Us to Defend Ourselves", but the delivery of the emcee goes against the same dark mood of the rhythm, probably to create a musical contrast that certainly hasn't succeeded here. Anchored to braggadocio, Shan's flow still has some points in its favor, but rapping often leaves something to be desired, here it's clearly out of shape, delivering in a banal way, ridiculous ("I Ran the Game"), gray ("It Ain't a Hip Hop Record", "Mic Line"), tasteless ("Walking on Sunshine", "Got to Be Funky", "How I Feel About You") or trivially light-hearted ("Death Was Quite a Surprise", "Rock Stuff"), when not extravagant ("It Don't Mean a Thing") or meaningless, with a choice of spoken-sung rapping ("I Want to Thank You").

The boy isn't helped by the hooks, easy, weak, banal, even persistently vicious at the beginning of the disc, while the guests are few and simply decent, he probably couldn't afford them, even the M+M girls go away as if nothing had happened ("Clap Your Hands"). This long record (beyond the hour), culminates in the worst cut of the album ("Music You Can Dance To"): heavy, minimal, syncopated, weak, simple rhythm, slow and weak syncopated delivery, banal hook. There are no strong or sufficient tracks, is one of the worst LPs of the year. Released by Cold Chillin with Warner Bros. distribution, the album was totally ignored by critics and the public, marking the inglorious end of his recording career.

Rating: 3/10.