DJ Khaled f/ Beanie Sigel and Pooh Bear - "Before The Solution" (mp3)
I wouldn't call myself a DJ Khaled fan, but I definitely don't dislike him as much as a lot of people seem to. Even folks who will rhapsodize about the amazing talents and accomplishments of DJ Drama will hate on the dude, which I don't really understand at all (although I suspect the difference has something to do with all the racist-ass terrorist jokes that Nah Right fruitfly types crack about him). Granted, Drama probably feels weird about Khaled totally jacking the "on the run from the feds" theme that he has way more of a right to use for that "We Takin' Over" video. I gave Listennn...The Album a solid B grade last year, and by the low standards of hip-hop compilations by committee, that makes it damn near a masterpiece. So I figured him dropping a follow-up so soon was good news, another decent mix of new tracks to get me through the Summer.
Unfortunately, We The Best is pretty much worthless, not nearly as consistent as Listennn despite being a full 20 minutes shorter. Both albums are on Koch, so it's hard to characterize one of them as a cheapo rush job and not the other, but We The Best makes its predecessor seem like a big budget masterpiece by comparison. I don't even like "We Takin' Over" as much as "Holla At Me," and it's still by far the best song on here. Noone really needed lesser sequels to "New York" and "Born N Raised" (although Flo Rida's verse on "Bitch I'm From Dade County" is pretty incredible).
Part of the problem is that four of the ten (only ten!) full songs are produced by Cool & Dre. They're not nearly as ubiquitous as they were a year or two ago, and I'm hesitant to say that any producer fell off simply because they haven't placed as many tracks on major albums as they used to. But based on their contributions here, I think they fell the fuck off. The beats aren't all way below par for their earlier work, but they clinch it with the horrible R&B vocals mixed way too high on "Brown Paper Bag" and "I'm From The Ghetto." If I'd known that "Brown Paper Bag" was gonna get scores of 7 or higher on the Stylus Jukebox today, I would've thrown my opinion in there to bring the average down, shit is terrible.
The real shame of DJ Khaled's albums is that they constantly prompt the question "what does this guy even do?" because he farms out most of the production to more established beatmakers, and he doesn't have to. As Beat Novacaine, he's produced hot album tracks for Fat Joe, Fabolous, and Pitbull, but for some reason won't do more than a beat or two on his own projects. And by far my favorite track on We The Best, "Before The Solution," was produced by Khaled (according to the liner notes at least; this site says it was done by Beanie Sigel's frequent collaborators Dre & Vidal, so I'm curious who really did the beat). It's practically the only cut on the album with one MC, and Beanie absolutely murders it, as much as he has any track in the last few years (another bad R&B hook, but that doesn't detract from it too much). I haven't really been expecting much from Sigel lately, considering that he barely rhymed for the first year after he got out of jail, and I've since realized I kinda overrated The B. Coming. But if he can sober up long enough to focus like he does on this song and stop mumbling about how the dudes who produced half his singles are mad gay, then I'm ready to be excited about The Solution.
I wouldn't call myself a DJ Khaled fan, but I definitely don't dislike him as much as a lot of people seem to. Even folks who will rhapsodize about the amazing talents and accomplishments of DJ Drama will hate on the dude, which I don't really understand at all (although I suspect the difference has something to do with all the racist-ass terrorist jokes that Nah Right fruitfly types crack about him). Granted, Drama probably feels weird about Khaled totally jacking the "on the run from the feds" theme that he has way more of a right to use for that "We Takin' Over" video. I gave Listennn...The Album a solid B grade last year, and by the low standards of hip-hop compilations by committee, that makes it damn near a masterpiece. So I figured him dropping a follow-up so soon was good news, another decent mix of new tracks to get me through the Summer.
Unfortunately, We The Best is pretty much worthless, not nearly as consistent as Listennn despite being a full 20 minutes shorter. Both albums are on Koch, so it's hard to characterize one of them as a cheapo rush job and not the other, but We The Best makes its predecessor seem like a big budget masterpiece by comparison. I don't even like "We Takin' Over" as much as "Holla At Me," and it's still by far the best song on here. Noone really needed lesser sequels to "New York" and "Born N Raised" (although Flo Rida's verse on "Bitch I'm From Dade County" is pretty incredible).
Part of the problem is that four of the ten (only ten!) full songs are produced by Cool & Dre. They're not nearly as ubiquitous as they were a year or two ago, and I'm hesitant to say that any producer fell off simply because they haven't placed as many tracks on major albums as they used to. But based on their contributions here, I think they fell the fuck off. The beats aren't all way below par for their earlier work, but they clinch it with the horrible R&B vocals mixed way too high on "Brown Paper Bag" and "I'm From The Ghetto." If I'd known that "Brown Paper Bag" was gonna get scores of 7 or higher on the Stylus Jukebox today, I would've thrown my opinion in there to bring the average down, shit is terrible.
The real shame of DJ Khaled's albums is that they constantly prompt the question "what does this guy even do?" because he farms out most of the production to more established beatmakers, and he doesn't have to. As Beat Novacaine, he's produced hot album tracks for Fat Joe, Fabolous, and Pitbull, but for some reason won't do more than a beat or two on his own projects. And by far my favorite track on We The Best, "Before The Solution," was produced by Khaled (according to the liner notes at least; this site says it was done by Beanie Sigel's frequent collaborators Dre & Vidal, so I'm curious who really did the beat). It's practically the only cut on the album with one MC, and Beanie absolutely murders it, as much as he has any track in the last few years (another bad R&B hook, but that doesn't detract from it too much). I haven't really been expecting much from Sigel lately, considering that he barely rhymed for the first year after he got out of jail, and I've since realized I kinda overrated The B. Coming. But if he can sober up long enough to focus like he does on this song and stop mumbling about how the dudes who produced half his singles are mad gay, then I'm ready to be excited about The Solution.
Labels: hip hop
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on Monday, June 18, 2007 at 6:44 PM.
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