Young MC has no business exposing his feeble attempts to create music to the public. This album is wack. It lacks both quality beats and rhymes.
The album opens up with Young’s unwarranted boasting “My rhymes are like wine made from grapes on the vine/getting better with time to engage the enzyme.” Whatever.
On the second track, the lead single, “Stress Test,” Young lets it be known that he is lyrically out of shape over an apocalyptic dungeonesque beat with pathetic lines like “they lucky we ain’t rappin in the NFL/cause if you had to pass a (urine) test to make a rap record/we’d be listenin to country/check it.” After listening to him country doesn’t sound so bad.
It is admirable, however, that Young MC doesn’t disrespect women or promote unnecessary flossing and overindulgence.
On “Flows,” Young brags that he’s got “flows” and even goes on to say that “Warren Beatty know I got flows.” Both the production and particularly Young’s slang is dated.
This album is also conceptually a failure. The track titled “Babe” isn’t even rap music. Young sings, or tries to anyway, to a pseudo-European drum and bass beat. Young also opts to croon on “Easier.” It’s on a new and improved, heightened level of wackness.
Then comes “Unsigned Diva” where Young clowns women who can’t sing, but, clearly, he can’t rap.
The only two songs of any remote redeeming value are “In Case” and “Crucial”. “In Case” is a song reminiscing about the “good ol'” days, circa ’87, back when Young MC was winning awards with his lone hit “Bust A Move”. “Crucial” is the album’s best song, an informed post 9/11 analysis from another view that is still, at best, average.
The rap game has always been that of a young man’s. In this game it’s nearly impossible to teach an old dog new tricks. Like Nate Dogg said, “The game don’t wait.” The game has long since passed Young MC by, and somebody needs to tell him, immediately.
Hopefully, Young has come to a point where he makes music to please himself, because this album certainly won’t please anyone else.