The Raw Deal [ 2024 March 13 ]

2024

jameshfetzer.org

audio review : In A Major Way ( album ) … E-40

audio review : In A Major Way ( album ) ... E-40

Listen to Da Bumble. It’s one long verse and it showcases just how unique E-40 is when it comes to rapping. It’s not really a matter of substance. His ghetto gab isn’t particularly clever or witty. It’s how he says what he says; his flamboyant flow and slangy style; that makes it both funny and addictive.

E-40 is the dope boy, after all, providing street drugs to the masses. This album offers back-to-back fixes until about halfway when the quality suddenly drops, mostly due to weak hooks. That’s when you start to realize that, though better than his Federal debut, it would’ve been better as another EP.

my rating : 4 of 5

1995

audio review : Richmond Hill ( album ) … Masta Ace + Marco Polo

audio review : Richmond Hill ( album ) ... Masta Ace + Marco Polo

Masta Ace and Marco Polo are skilled at what they do, especially Polo. His beats are pure hip-hop; the boom-bap type that originated in the ghettos of New York City. He’s actually from Richmond Hill, Ontario, hence the title. Breukelen native Masta Ace has been dropping funky rhymes since The Symphony, but he’s sometimes too innovative for his own good.

The rapper has long had the tendency to limit himself to specific lyrical concepts that, over the course of a whole song, come across as somewhat gimmicky. The first word of almost every bar on Connections connects with the word before it. Outside Inside, with C-Red, puts the title words on repeat. All I Want, with Wordsworth, is a list of Christmas wishes.

Brooklyn Heights, all about what it “ain’t”, is one of the best songs though, along with Below The Clouds and Heat Of The Moment. Plant Based and Life Music deal with health, but Ace stays silent on the topic of MS. As a sequel, Hill is on par with the first Story. The worst bits are still the skits, though there should be an epilogue to match the prologue.

my rating : 3 of 5

2024

video review : Saw 2

video review : Saw 2

It’s a horror flick cliché; a group of hapless victims bordered-up in a house. The difference here is that they’re not hiding from deadly beings lurking outside. They’re trying to get out before they kill themselves.

Every character in the movie, including the cops trying to find them, comes across as a character with the exception of Jigsaw; credit to actor Tobin Bell; but Saw 2 is better, stronger and sharper, than the first.

my rating : 3 of 5

2005