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Yung Joc - New Joc CityAlbum Review by:
John Burnett
Monday, June 5, 2006
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Yung Joc emerges from nowhere seizing the airwaves with the Nitti produced club-banger “It’s Goin Down” and opportunistic businessman, Sean “P. Diddy” Combs quickly swooped the Atl-native adding him to Bad Boy’s Southern branch, Bad Boy South. With the single being wildly successful and hitting the top of the billboards Joc was set to release his first project to this date, New Joc City.
It seems that since T.I. took Atlanta music to the trap (a neighborhood place of commerce where drugs are usually distributed) those who came after him have refused to leave the trap. With Atl’s current arriviste, Yung Joc, it appears the more things change, the more things stay the same. The intro plainly claims the album will provide tales of “gunfights, riding, thuggin’ the trap and most of all gettin’ money.” With the exception of tracks about his sexual escapades with loose women that just about covers the gamut for New Joc City.
“Dope Boy Magic” takes you instantly to the trap with Joc exclaiming he can “drop the work in the pot and it bounce back like elastic” which sets the ambiance for this song as another ode to cooking and moving that soft and hard white, which is a constant theme on the album. This track simply brags about the trafficking of “work,” “getting dope boy fresh” from the dough brought in by work and avoiding the feds. On “Don’t Play Wit It” featuring label mate, Big Gee, Joc and his cohort explore the consequences that come with playing with a hustler’s money each rapper providing violent descriptions of those who get slumped for messing up the finances in the trap. “Patron” adds another club banger to the album. This ode to intoxication and everyone’s favorite tequila displays Young Joc’s wordplay with the upstart delivering several references and punchlines while the beat keeps the listener drunk with bass. Although Joc shows more lyrical prowess on this track then on prior tracks, he is overshadowed by the beat and retains the same overly simplistic rhyme style that is used on his lead-off single, “It’s Goin Down.” Joc slows it down and smoothes it out on “Flip Flop” a track for those who choose to cruise down their neighborhood blocks while putting it in the air. The screwed up (slowed down) chorus along with the references to box Chevys, candy paint and flip flops with socks successfully captures that relaxed Southern aura while Joc drives you down Martin Luther King Drive in Atl riding two miles an hour. Joc attempts to add some diversity on his album when he delves into the memories of early cut (sex) stories on “1st Time,” but does not fail to let the listener know that “this ain’t no love song/more like a cut song” and follows immediately with the beat up track “Knock it Out,” a more audacious sex song about laying pipe to the opposite sex.
New Joc City” ends up being an incessant money-getting, gun clapping, drug-moving loop with little to no attention given to the lyrics. Yung Joc uses the same simple, repetitive flow on the majority of the tracks, a flow that could be mastered by nearly anyone. Most of the above average tracks on this poor debut are made so by the production. When Joc doesn’t get laced on the beat, you can consider it a wrap and hit the skip button, which will be exercised frequently on this work. This album is good for exactly what it claims at the beginning “gunfights, riding, thuggin’ the trap and most of all gettin’ money” but not much else; no lyrical content, not much thought and not much creativity.
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