Stability

Ever since we first read the name of Kasseem Dean aka Swizz Beatz, we knew that he had what it takes to turn the whole hip hop game upside down. It was back then when the people’s opinions about his stuff were controversial, love it or hate it style. Nowadays, Swizz is one of those producers who have at least one production on almost every bigger album. Swizz managed to become versatile and diverse, a fact that made him interesting for even more MCs than before. The only question remaining: Does he have enough skills for a whole album?

My answer: More or less. With a huge roster of superstars and heavyweights, Swizz had a lot of good and famous MCs to support him: N.O.R.E., Shyne, Jada, Busta, Your browser does not support inline frames or is currently configured not to display inline frames. "http://www.sixshot.com/artist.asp?artist=LL Cool J">LL, Nas, Eve, and that’s not all. Then again, we have the old compilation problem: You just have to represent different styles as a producer, whether you want it or not, ‘cause there have to be versatile tracks. This causes a lot of artists not to be on their absolutely top favorite beats and a lot of producers to produce things that are not their own absolutely top favorite style. I’m not saying this happened here, but there are just a few signs… Take Jadakiss and Ron Isley on “Big Business” for example: The beat is not the dopest thing on earth, and then, it’s never clear whether Jada or Ron Isley is the featuring – too much singing, too less rapping, or vice versa. “Ghetto Love” with Mashonda and LL is really nice, that girl has a great voice, and as far as love is concerned, well, I guess LL’s the man, right? Did you know that “Good Times” by Styles was co-produced by Swizz? Well, that’s why it’s on the record. It’s a really dope track and one of the best things on that album, even though I’ve heard it a ten thousand times. “Gone Delirious” with Lil’ Kim is a great track too, it’s rough and rugged, and Kim with a slow type of flow. N.O.R.E. is once again loud and grimy – typical type of track. Eve: definitely the girl with the hottest flow, on this record too. Nas, Fat Joe and Cassidy remix “Salute Me” which goes on a dry beat without anything unnecessary in plus – also not bad. Metallica and Ja Rule, well, that’s the worst thing on this record. I never felt this hip rock stuff, but this one is just too hard, and Ja is not even nice anymore. The Bonus Track “Bigger Business” features a lot of stars and is just an allstars anthem, even the beat feels a better due to some really dope breaks – and of course, Jada’s flow is ill…

Overall, we have a handful of great tracks and a lot good ones, but there’s no concept on the whole record. The Metallica thing is weak, the rest is not bad but not extraordinarily good either. But the tracks mentioned in this review are definitely worth listening to, and maybe they are reason enough to buy that disc. The problem is – as always with compilations – the record’s stability. It’s top and not really flop, but worse things changing with each other. But there’s more good than bad, definitely.