Queen Latifah's third studio album, released two years after the last. Like some New York rappers, after attempting mainstream success with a commercial radio-oriented effort, the artist abandons pop sounds and returns hardcore with a redeeming comeback album.
Tony Dofat, Kay Gee and above all SID Reynolds are the authors of the production on the disc, while Queen Latifah reserves the rhythm of the last song to herself, she dedicates to her dead brother. The beatmakers provide an energetic and hardcore soundscape: the rhythms are practically perfect, East Coast boom bap with tight, hard, dusty and slow drums, raw and incessant, often midtempo, great bass lines and good samples from both the past and modern releases. From a lyrical point of view, the project is mainly focused on braggadocio, with pro-black, anti-misogyny, socio-conscious and sentimental extracts, maintaining a strong Afrocentric, feminist and positive identity. The Newark MC is at her best and expresses her lyrics with an aggressive and energetic rapping style, raw and smooth, often hard and pure: nevertheless, she doesn't completely give up a style closer to ragga and pop, as well as singing hooks, which she manages to make work very well, giving more flavor to her record and proving to be one of the best rappers of the period.
Released by Motown, the record became the rapper's most commercially successful product, reaching the top 15 among hip-hop records and being certified gold by the RIAA. Composed of 15 cuts for a total of 56 minutes of listening, this is an excellent record of an excellent MC: unencumbered by weaknesses, the album boasts flawless production and masterful execution, blessed with powerful delivery and a dope flow, even elegant in its ferocity. Confident, brilliant and necessary, the album is a powerful and influential project, constantly entertaining the listener, thanks to the strong personality of the performer, and presents some timeless gems: it's without doubt the best album by Queen Latifah, and one of the finest of the year.
The artist continues to deliver hardcore bars on dusty drums amidst great interludes, up to "No Work", where she delivers smooth hardcore bars with a spectacular, devastating, unstoppable flow. The first song is never easy: "Black Hand Side" manages to trace a path and show the way to all the other tracks. Amazing energetic jazzy boom bap made by SID Reynolds, midtempo drum, good samples, smooth, energetic and hardcore delivery by Latifah. The fourth song is produced by Tony Dofat: on a jazzy boom bap, with a good sample and a skinny tight and hard drum machine, Treach, Heavy D and KRS-One drop a verse each in battle rap, the execution of the former BDP is dope, but then comes Queen Latifah with the best flow of her career and delivers with a smoothly overwhelming style to take back the her track, masterpiece.
"U.N.I.T.Y." boasts a stunning sample from Crusaders' "A Message From the Inner City", Kay Gee's jazzy boom bap, light, tight and dirty drum, the MC delivers an anti-misogynist anthem, with a hardcore and smooth, powerful and energetic, dope rapping: the song wins the award as "Best Rap Solo Performance" at the 1995 Grammys and is definitely one of the best songs of the season. Like the one that immediately preceded it. After an interlude, Latifah creates a timeless song, perfect cut. Intro, vocal samples from her late eighties' song, "Princess of the Posse", and "Hey Young World" by Slick Rick respectively, while the musical background is provided by Herb Alpert's "Making Love in the Rain". Boom bap jazzy smoothness made by SID Reynolds with a perfect midtempo drum, dirty, dusty, hard: Queen Latifah delivers a perfect confident hook, then she delivers three outstanding stanzas with icy coldness and impressive lucidity, calm, slow, velvety and hardcore, flawless style.
Rating: 8.5/10.
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