Two years after their first album, hip-hop supergroup LUV NY returns with a new lineup featuring AG, Kool Keith, Dave Dar, Kurious, Lord Tariq, and L Fudge. Roc Marciano and OC are no longer present. Ray West produces the entire album. Additional beats are provided by Menocal, Cresstal, Billy Gomez, Phil Motta, and King of Chill.
"BX Intro" is performed by Ray West. "Don't Know Why" is a joint between Kool Keith and Kurious: female soul sample looped to tight, hard drum, solid bass not rewarded by the mixing, Kool Keith spits over the beat with his style, Kurious tries to be more regular, calm, trying to listen to the rhythm and keep up with it, but the beat is twisted and trying to suppress him. AG and Bamboo Bros are the rappers in "Snake Charmer Part 3", over a twisted beat by Ray West, another female sample looped to tight, harsh drum, rough samples. Lord Tariq goes solo in "Role Call", but the rhythm realized by Ray West doesn't work well, despite a good bass line, always due to a wrong loop. The disk continues to seem experimental with AG solo "Ahead of Time", produced by Menocal along with Ray West. The hook is removed in favor of samples scratches and this is one of the few positive things of the entire disk.
Dave Dar and L Fudge obtain two songs in a raw. The first, "Hit-Men Prelude" (you can found it also with the title "Hitmen"), boasts what is the finest beat until this moment: splendid dreamy instrumental, sound of the vinyl crackling, organ keys in loop, deviant guitar licks, the beat breathes wisely, then the two performers goes back n forth. The soundscape breathes again at the height of the chorus, instead the song is finished with half-a-minute of slow rap back n forth performed in an amateurish style. "Stereotypes" has a boom bap with a lounge jazz flavor, hard drum, whiny and annoying chorus repeated ad nauseam, I wish these guys' rap was better that it is, even because the beat seems to be good for once in this cassette. After Ray West skit "It's a City" (Spotify credits Kool Keith for whatever reason), the disk boasts four remix and the final track by Dave Dar, "Me and Mine": good rhythm by Ray West, minimal, slow, with sleepy keyboards, sound of a spur in loop, the performer goes in spoken word in this cut.
Creestal is the author of the first remix, "Snake Charmer": elegant drum, splendid horn in loop, solid bass line, good samples, velvet rapping by AG and Bamboo Bros, then there's a dope bridge, comic book style, it seems to have come out from the keyboards of MF DOOM, wonderful choice. The second remix is another "Snake Charmer" version: the same Bamboo Bros and AG, this time over a beat realized by Billy Gomez (Spotify credits Sp1200 like it was an artist): light hi-hat, sound of the vinyl crackling, good samples, the rhythm comes correct, but the previous one was simply better. Phil Motta remixes "Truth", the musical choice sounds cheap and bad, stuttering drum that jumps too much, there's something wrong in the mixing and the result doesn't reward the performance of the rappers. The last remix is the work of King of Chill for "Ahead of Time" ("A Head of Time" on Spotify): the soundscape want to be dreamy, even here something in the mixing goes wrong. The musical carpet created by King of Chill sounds perfect for the rapping style of Andre the Giant, but the voice of the emcee sounds "under" the beat.
The tape is released by Red Apples 45 in limited edition and distributed by Fat Beats, despite all it's not worth listening to because, unlike the album published a couple of years ago, here Ray West doesn't get a single beat right. 5/10.
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