‘Times Up’ features an uptempo track brimming with echoing pianos, and a haunting Nate Dogg hook, while ‘U Make Me Wanna’s’ swirling indian-styled synths mask the track’s harder edge. Luckily Scott Storch, who is currently blowing up MANY a rapper with his sterling work behind the mixing desk, has no such difficults in finding hot beats for Jason. His other production joint on the album, ‘Air It Out’ is equally bland, and perfectly illustrates the problem of Jada’s lyrics dropped over anything but a slamming beat – the man barely exhibits any emotion in his voice, and its this lack of a spark that quickly renders his lyrics dull if they aren’t supported by decent boardwork. The first stumble comes with ‘Bring You Down’ where Neo.com’s pedestrian beat, filled with stuttering chimes and a mind-numbingly boring hook produce a skip-button reaction by the end of Jada’s first verse. DJ Quik also pops up to add additional West coast bounce, before Jada gets on the mic to show that he can ride an LA beat supremely by spitting cash-in-duffel bag rhymes that drip with New York flavour, and STILL make it sound tight. The Jelly Roll-produced ‘Shine’ is a blantant bite of the ‘On The Boulevard’ Dre and Snoop cut from “The Wash” soundtack – identical sounds, identical sound effects, identical sounding hook, almost identical Snoop Dogg guest verse. Of course with such a club oriented cut, thought-provoking lyrics are at a minimum, but he still sparkles over the bouncy beat and spits some witty punchlines here and there as the track progresses. Opening with the Just Blaze-ish ‘What You So Mad At?’ is a nice move though – aimed at the clubs, this will definitely get the head moving, and at the same time introduce cats to Jada-over-decent-beats. However at many points throughout the album, the patchiness factor is still in effect, with some seriously below-par beats still making the final tracklist. Its seems that Jason did indeed listen a little to what people were telling him before he went in the studio this time – finally he does have some nice beats behind him – IN PLACES. For the duration of this review I will strive to keep the crow-hateration at bay. What the hell was going through his mind? “Hmmm, I need a trademark noise or phrase… let’s see, Master P had that ‘uuuuuuuunhggggng’ thing so I can’t do that… shouting ‘Just Blaze!’ at the start of my cuts is taken… Oh I got it! I’ll caw like a rabid crow – that’s what’s good! The street’ll eat it up!” Its right up there with having a track with rock guitars finding its way onto your tracklist. One thing is clear though – having a crow stuck in your throat, and advertising the fact at the start of almost every track is a recipe for getting you an A to the L backhander. Or maybe he just has a penchant for eating crows on the regular… like I said – I dunno. As he opened the window he couldn’t help but SWALLOW THE LARGE CROW SITTING ON THE FUCKING WINDOW LEDGE. Shit, maybe he was chillin’ at the crib one day, and his air conditioning broke, making him open a window. When it happened I don’t know, maybe someone else can tell me. But as usual he had to do something to piss me off… It seemed that Jada spitting hot lyrics over hot beats could be a reality.
Round here we like to call that RasKassizm…įollowing his appearance on the Gang Starr album last year, and the leak of a few tracks from “Kiss Of Death” long before its release, it seemed that finally the pieces of the puzzle had fallen into place. Zero for two, and it seemed the problem was an emcee who did have some genuine skills for micplay, but absolutely none for picking beats. Giving him the benefit of the doubt (of course it was Styles and Sheek who brought him down to their level AND picked the beats, right?) we listened to him again as he blew up his own spot before the release of “Kiss The Game Goodbye” – then we laughed in his face as the extremely patchy album went off like a damp squib.But annoyingly the number of people giving this record props, and talking Jada up as something amazing hadn’t dwindled. More annoying still were the number of people giving this record props, and talking Jada up as something amazing. When “We Are The Streets” finally dropped one felt that a revisit to the drawing board and a lesson in not talking big unless you can back it up was in order. First of all, it was his continual harping about how hot he and the Lox were, and how things would be different now they were signed to the Double R. Since he jumped the Bad Boy sinking ship with the rest of his Lox chums for the deck of the SS Ruff Ryder, he’s continually managed to get on my tits like no other emcee in recent memory. For me, Jada has always had something about him that drives me away from what is arguably a nice emcee.