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DJ Drama - Gangsta Grillz: The AlbumAlbum Review by:
John Burnett
Saturday, December 1, 2007
 It’s been a tumultuous year for Hip Hop. We have seen our biggest, brightest stars reduced to criminals by anyone who has a media outlet; some rightfully so, and others erroneously. In the latter bunch, we find Tyree Cinque Simmons better known as DJ Drama. Under the premise that Drama’s Aphilliates Music Group was heading up a bootlegging syndicate, an Atlanta task force raided the studio seizing 81,000 compact discs and, subsequently, arresting Drama and DJ Don Cannon for racketeering. Although major record labels reap the benefits (free promotion and future record sales) from the buzz a good mixtape creates, Drama and Don Cannon were abandoned by those same labels and allowed to take the fall. And despite the turbulent year that they’ve had, they still managed to release the official Gangsta Grillz album.
Although the release of the album shows the resilience of rap music and its inhabitants, the music on it does not. The Gangsta Grillz album is marred by the disappointing results of big name features that fall short of their expectations. “5000 Ones” is a good example of this. The track features: Nelly, T.I., Diddy, Yung Joc, Twista and Willie the Kid. At first glance, you’d think this would be the blockbuster track of the album, but it turns out being a corny strip club anthem about tossing money in the air. Lyrically, there are few memorable moments and the hook is grating. Even Twista’s rapid fire flow concluding the track couldn’t save this one. The Dame Grease produced “Takin’ Pictures,” featuring Young Jeezy, Willie the Kid, Jim Jones, Rick Ross, Young Buck and T.I. is, similarly, unsatisfactory. With flimsy lines like “it’s Willie/my future bright like a highlighter/they taking picture cause I’m fly like a skydiver,” courtesy of Willie the Kid and many other weak quotables, there’s not much saving this effort, either. Besides a strong T.I. verse, with a clever Chi Ali reference, to conclude the track there's nothing else worth checking out on this track; the rest of the features’ verses are forgettable. Even the rehashing of the posse cut “Cannon” is quite disappointing. They removed a really good Detroit Red verse from the original and added an okay T.I. verse to this supposed remix. The rest of the verses are identical from the original. This is one of Cannon’s best productions to this date. They should have put more into reviving it.
There are some bright spots on this mixtape/album. “Beneath the Diamonds” meshes Twista, La the Darkman and Devin the Dude with the lush production of Mr. Porter while the rappers rhyme about their respective come ups. The contrast between the high tempo Twista and the slowed rhymes of Devin the Dude is a nice touch. And Lil Jon cooks up another cosmic trunk rattler on “Grillz Gleamin” featuring Bohagen, Lil Scrappy, Princess and Diamond. Diamond shows again, with another impressive verse, that she’s capable of being successful as a solo artist. By far, the crowning jewel of this album is OutKast’s “The Art of Storytellin’ Part 4.” Andre 3000 shows why he’s a mainstay on many artists’ list of top 5 emcees. On his verse, he, creatively, weaves in and out of an anecdote meanwhile making an astute commentary on Hip Hop’s current foolish trends. The verse is already being hailed by some as one of the best verses of 2007.
On the album, there’s so much focus on what Drama likes to call “quality street music,” that there’s barely any good music. After the raid, Drama had two weeks to put this album back together and it’s evident. There are some incomplete verses and some awkward editing on a few tracks where it’s obvious the artist wasn’t in the studio to put the track together. It just doesn't seem to have the care and precision that Drama's past efforts have had. If this is what Gangsta Grillz tapes will be like in the future, I’ll keep the mixtapes from the past that are much, much better.
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