Reader Review: The Madd Rapper - Tell 'Em Why U Madd (January 18, 2000)

(I've sat on this Reader Review for nearly two years, a fact that author Sir Bonkers probably isn't super-thrilled about. However, I held this one back because of an agreement I had with him, one which I intend on honoring, the specifics of which we'll get to in the very near future. Anyway, today he tackles the only album The Madd Rapper (also known as Bad Boy producer Deric “D-Dot” Angelettie) ever officially released, Tell 'Em Why U Madd. Leave your thoughts for him below.)



Whenever I feel the need to send in one of these Reader Reviews, I generally like to choose albums I think Max probably vaguely remembers but wouldn’t listen to even if somebody threatened to blow his brains out as the alternative. So, lets get started!

The year was 1999. Bad Boy Records was the biggest label around, holding all of the sway and influence over what hip hop actually sounded like back then, but they watched as that status slowly slipped away with each and every bullshit album release from the likes of Puff Diddy and Pastor Ma$e (although they did find success with a project that recycled the late Notorious B.I.G.'s old verses, but I digress). Even before the empire Puffy built started to crumble, the Bad Boy label roster was heavily criticized for making hip hop accessible to the masses (read: “commercial”, or “corny”, depending on your point of view).

Then Bad Boy producer/ A&R-guy Deric “D-Dot” Angelettie, who crafted some of Bad Boy’s biggest hit singles late in the decade (such as “All About the Benjamins”), responded by creating an alter ego named The Madd Rapper (oooh, clever!), who embodied the generic role of “hater” and acted against everything Puffy and company stood for. Starting with Biggie's Life After Death and continuing throughout sometime around 2000, every single album released by the label featured a skit from The Madd Rapper.

D-Dot apparently thought that his idea was fucking brilliant, because when it came time for him to record his own album (he had actually started off in the game as a rapper, so it makes sense that he would eventually want to return to the front of the camera), he decided to do so under the guise of The Madd Rapper, since nobody who bought Puff Daddy or Ma$e's albums gave a shit about who produced what, and he probably figured that the hip hop audience would recognize the character from all of those skits much more quickly (kind of like when underground rapper Aristotle, who appeared as the character Ken Kaniff on Eminem's major label debut The Slim Shady LP, decided to release an entire album acting like Kaniff, although, to be fair, that was also probably just a response to Marshall essentially firing him and taking over the role himself on future efforts).

That album, Tell 'Em Why U Madd, featured the usual suspects Puffy and Ma$e, along with Bad Boy b-teamers Black Rob and Carl Thomas. D-Dot also made room for his friends Desert Rose, Picasso Black, and Fierce (all of which I shall ignore throughout the rest of the review because I just don’t care about them), as well as some of the biggest names in his Rolodex at the time: guest stars include Raekwon, Busta Rhymes, The Beatnuts, Jermaine Dupri, Lil’ Cease, as well as a few newbies you may have since heard from, such as Eminem and 50 Cent (who wouldn't hit it big for another four years later). The beats on here were handled by No I.D., Charlemagne, fellow Bad Boy Hitman Ron "Amen-Ra" Lawrence, Jermaine Dupri, and the Trackmasters, among others, as well as D-Dot himself and his young protégé at the time, Kanye West. Yep, that Kanye West.

Puffy apparently had very little faith in the project, allowing D-Dot to take his creation to Columbia Records (who released it as a joint venture with D-Dot's own Crazy Cat vanity label, which, to my knowledge, hasn't released anything else worth mentioning). It turns out that Puffy was a fucking genius: absolutely nobody actually bought Tell 'Em Why U Madd. Still, the pre-fame Kanye, Fiddy and Eminem material might mean that some of this is still worth hearing today, at least for historical purposes.

So?

1. I’M MADD (FEAT. JOE HOOKER & THE EBONY OPERA)
Like any of the Madd Rapper skits, this is funny exactly the one time.

2. TMR VS. D-DOT
A dull “battle” staged between The Madd Rapper and his creator over a dull beat that’s reminiscent of Jay-Z’s “Ain’t no N---a”. The only positive thing I can say about this boring shit is that D-Dot could have actually convinced people that he and The Madd Rapper were two different people based on this track.

3. TALK SHOW (INTRO)
Please refer to my comments from “I'm Madd”.

4. YOU’RE ALL ALONE (FEAT. PICASSO BLACK)
Apparently Kanye co-produced this one alongside D-Dot. Which is interesting, as it features neither of his trademark styles (his early chipmunk soul or his later electro/emo bullshit output). This was disappointing.

5. THAT’S WHAT’S HAPPENIN’ (FEAT. MA$E & TRACEY LEE)
This is what you would expect to hear on the album in the first place (if you are familiar with D-Dot, anyway), although Kanye also had an alleged hand in its creation; maybe he made Deric a very nice sandwich during its recording and he was feeling generous with production credits. This sounds like it came from the Bad Boy rejected singles pile, and Pastor Ma$e manages to somehow sound more sleepy than usual. Meh.

6. DICE GAME
Skit…

7. ROLL WITH THE CAT
Deric spits a technically proficient but completely unspectacular verse over a ditto Dame Grease instrumental.

8. HOW WE DO (FEAT. PUFF DADDY)
Puffy recites a verse and hook, sounding like he’s trying to read a grocery list out loud without having his glasses on. D-Dot sounds fucking great in comparison, but you shouldn’t read that as any kind of endorsement.

9. STIR CRAZY (FEAT. EMINEM)
Technically this would be the first (and, to date, only) time Marshall has ever rhymed over a beat produced by the Louis Vuitton Don (although 'Ye did produce the D-12 song “D-12 World”, Eminem wasn't featured on that particular track). This is still pretty fucking awesome, really, since both artists are in full-on Slim Shady mode, spitting all kinds of twisted shit and are ripping the track apart while Kanye produces a passable, Trackmasters-lite, jiggy instrumental. Perhaps Slim wrote the Madd Rapper’s lyrics? Who knows? Anyway, this was fucking nice.

10. D-DOT INTERVIEW
D-Dot explains his alter ego, a topic nobody even cared about when this album first dropped.

11. GHETTO (FEAT. RAEKWON & CARL THOMAS)
Over a minimal piano-based Kanye instrumental, the Chef spits a decent verse, Carl’s angelic vocals complement him nicely, and Deric doesn’t embarrass himself, although this would have been a better song had he chosen to use his “normal” rapping voice instead of that of his Madd Rapper character. (This would mark the first time Kanye sort-of worked alongside Raekwon. Well, I thought that was interesting.)

12. SURVIVING THE GAME (FEAT. DESERT ROSE)
Am I just a misogynistic pig, or do nine out of ten female rappers just suck?

13. BONGO BREAK (FEAT. BUSTA RHYMES)
The Madd Rapper sounds quite natural next to Trevor, who turns in a good performance over a bongo-based beat, one that manages to not be too jiggy for its own good. As a matter of fact, this instrumental sounds similar to something coffeehouse snobs would read free-verse poetry to while other coffeehouse snobs watch and pretend to listen. That imagery hilariously contrasts with Bussa Bus and D-Dot's amped, profanity-filled verses. It's strange that this avant-garde track actually didn't feature Kanye's involvement.

14. WHATEVA (FEAT. PICASSO BLACK & FIERCE)
This sounds like a proto-Kanye song, what with its cinematic violins and its operatic chants, but it ain’t. Maybe Kanye was taking notes in the background, though. Still, it’s surprisingly good, considering that nobody spitting on here possesses any actual talent.

15. TOO MANY HO’S (FEAT. JERMAINE DUPRI & LIL’ CEASE)
Despite the lineup and the generic subject matter that well-explained by its title, this manages to be, musically, one of the better songs on Tell 'Em Why U Madd, largely due to its simplistic, un-jiggy Kanye/D-Dot beat. It’s still puzzling to me why they were both needed to create this instrumental, but I’m not complaining.

16. BIRD CALL
Skit…

17. NOT THE ONE (FEAT. OH! FICIAL)
Now what the fuck kind of artist name is Oh! Ficial? Anyway, the beat sounds like a The College Dropout-era Kanye West beat but without the chipmunk soul, but that’s only because No I.D. actually produced this. It’s amazing how much less annoying D-Dot sounds when he isn’t performing in character. This will definitely make its way onto my iPod.

18. THEY JUST DON’T KNOW (FEAT. NATURE & BLACK ROB)
Why Nature was invited to contribute is confusing to me, since the only album from rap supergroup The Firm (which he was a late addition to) had already tanked by 2000, but over this rather simple D-Dot beat, nobody really disappoints, especially Black Robbie.

19. ESTE LOCA (FEAT. THE BEATNUTS & RAMBO)
I found this to be pretty fucking hilarious as a parody of all of the artists of the time who were jumping onto the Latino bandwagon as if there were no tomorrow, thanks to the success of Ricky Martin and J-Lo (who both are referenced on “Este Loca”, along with, weirdly, Jerry Springer). This whole Madd Rapper gimmick truly serves its original purpose on this track, and the guest stars are also in their element. Nice, although not necessarily on a musical level.

20. SHYSTY BROADS (FEAT. MAE WEST, ERIKA KAINE & BABY BLU)
Aside from the hilariously bad hook sung by D-Dot, this song has zero entertainment value.

21. TALK SHOW (OUTRO)
Please refer to my comments on “I’m Madd”.

22. WILDSIDE (FEAT. DESERT ROSE)
Actually fairly entertaining. If D-Dot had ditched his Madd Rapper persona (save for maybe two or three tracks) and recorded a proper solo album, we may have had a much more successful project on our hands. Alas, to this day he still hasn't.

23. CAR JACK
Skit…

24. HOW TO ROB (FEAT. 50 CENT)
Fiddy’s Trackmasters-produced debut major label single, originally intended for his Columbia Records debut Power Of The Dollar, which remains officially unreleased but has been heavily bootlegged since his rise to fame. Before you immediately discount this track, what you should know is that the Curtis Jackson that appears here is an entirely different artist than the guy who’s trying to get your girl to have a baby by him, baby. His opening line, “Yo the bottom line is: I’m a crook with a deal / If my record don’t sell, I’ma rob and steal”, is followed by a long, detailed laundry list of popular artists (at the time) that he plans on sticking up. Nobody in the industry seems to be safe: even the song's producers, Tone and Poke, are threatened. 50's jabs at Big Pun are especially vicious. This track manages to be all sorts of grimy in spite of (or because of?) its poppy instrumental. At the time of its recording, Curtis hadn't yet been shot in the jaw, so his flow sounded a lot less like Pastor Ma$e than he did on his subsequent releases. What does any of this have to do with The Madd Rapper? Well, D-Dot only pops up to provide the tongue-in-cheek chorus, but he actually sounds pretty good in this limited role.

FINAL THOUGHTS: Tell 'Em Why U Madd actually isn't all that terrible, and the project is a strangely appropriate place for Kanye West to have made his mainstream production debut, considering that he is, in fact, an egotistic jackass, much like The Madd Rapper himself. True, it’s a shiny suit disc, just like Puffy's No Way Out, Ma$e's Harlem World, or even Jay-Z's In My Lifetime Vol. 1, except not quite as catchy and with less actual good rhymes. Production-wise, D-Dot, 'Ye, and company generally follow the trends set by D-Dot and Puff's other Hitmen, instead of doing anything to push the game forward. The Eminem song on here is good, but it isn't anything you haven’t heard him do before (unless you were introduced to Marshall around the time Relapse came out, I guess). The 50 Cent track, however, is quite possibly the best song the man has ever recorded, and even that sounds out of place on Tell 'Em Why U Madd, mainly because it was intended for an entirely different album. The Raekwon and Busta Rhymes joints kick ass, though, and the project features some other decently entertaining moments. Still, even with eight of the twenty-four tracks on here being good enough to earn regular rotation on my iPod, that makes the majority of the project meh.

BUY OR BURN: There isn't a simple answer to that question. In many ways, Tell 'Em Why U Madd is a piece of hip hop history, and you could certainly do worse than buying it, since most of it won't really piss you off (unlike, say, 808s & Heartbreak). The worst songs on here will just put you to sleep, and everybody needs to sleep every once in a while (okay, I admit, that's the worst reason ever to buy an album). The eight tracks listed below prove that The Madd Rapper was capable of occasionally spitting a decent verse, which, admittedly, is a possibility that never crossed my mind whenever I skipped his skits on Life After Death, No Way Out, and Harlem World. If you do find it fo' cheap in a used bin, then by all means you have my blessing. This isn't for everyone, though: only the Bad Boy Records nostalgia fiends really need to even bother, and even then a burn would be more than sufficient.

BEST TRACKS: “Stir Crazy”; “Ghetto”; “Bongo Break”; “Too Many Ho's”; “Not the One”; “They Just Don't Know”; “Wildside”; “How to Rob”

-Sir Bonkers

(Questions? Comments? Ill-advised and inappropriate requests for me to write about entirely separate artists? They go below.)