Beanie Sigel - The Reason (June 26, 2001)

Dwight “Beanie Sigel” Grant’s sophomore album, The Reason, dropped less than a year after his Roc-A-Fella label boss Jay-Z attempted, and failed, to brand the four most successful rappers on the imprint as a quartet called The Dynasty. As you two may recall, The Dynasty consisted of Hov, Sigel, Memphis Bleek, and Amil, the latter of whom absolutely counts under that “successful rapper” qualification given her participation on Jay-Z’s hit single “Can I Get A…”, among other tracks, so while it can best be described as a technicality, it’s still a true fact, and hopefully she will continue to rake in the royalties from that record until the ends of the Earth. Although this is the music industry we’re talking about, so odds are she’s had to take on multiple extra shifts at Rite Aid to cover rent, in which case, come on Jay, do the right thing and hand her a motherfucking check!

(*straightens tie*) Anyway.

Jay-Z’s failed experiment resulted in The Dynasty: Roc La Familia, the man’s fifth solo album that was originally earmarked to be a label sampler, cycling through the four main players while bringing in ancillary players as necessary. In reality, Jay shifted gears and made it a solo project, albeit one with multiple cameos from Bleek and Sigel, along with one lone guest appearance from Amil, who was already on the outs with the label at the time of recording. So while Hov’s dream of a supergroup failed to come to fruition again (see: The Commission, alongside Charli Baltimore and the late Notorious B.I.G.; Murder Inc., with Ja Rule and the late DMX), at least Beans managed to use the platform to his advantage, turning in solid performances and building up the anticipation for his second solo offering.

The Reason managed to debut at number five on the Billboard 200 during its first week of release, tying the highest rank his debut, The Truth, rose to a year prior. Its fourteen tracks are handled by a surprisingly small number of producers, with in-house beatmaker Just Blaze contributing six songs and an young upstart named Kanye Omari West clocking two instrumentals of his own. Grant’s limiting of the number of cooks in the kitchen helped make The Reason sound much more cohesive than his debut, and the success of said debut helped the Philadelphia native secure guest spots from A-list talent such as Scarface, Daz Dillinger, and Kurupt, along with the obvious favors called in to Memphis Bleek, his State Property family, and executive producer Jay-Z himself.

1. NOTHING LIKE IT
One byproduct of label boss Shawn Carter’s introductory track on The Dynasty: Roc La Familia was the need for other artists to emulate its energy on their own terms. Hence Beanie Sigel’s “Nothing Like It”. Produced by a pre-MAGA Kanye West still entrenched in his soul sample phase, “Nothing Like It” is, er, nothing more than a rap album intro featuring off-kilter Sigel verses delivered in complete bewilderment of the music creeping behind them, and that isn’t meant as a compliment – our host spews his threats and boasts without conviction, without passion, sounding bored as fuck as Ye’s sample (lifted from The Dynamic Superiors’ “Ain’t Nothing Like The Real Thing”) chirps about there being “Nothing Like” Sigel, which, based on this performance, is a goddamn lie. “I paint word pictures on the canvas of life, but I don’t control the colors,” Sigel says toward the beginning of the song. Well, no shit, Dwight – that’s what all rappers are trying to do. The cliché-riddled “Nothing Like It” fails to establish Beanie Sigel as a force to be reckoned with., Rather, it sets our host up as the man he eventually became: a dude nobody really gives a shit about today except for when one remembers his classic performances, which (a) were all in the past, even at this point (except for his cameo on that Pusha T track that I still love today), and (b) all occurred alongside other artists., I’d love to say this is Kanye’s fault, because I think more stuff within our chosen genre should be blamed on him, but his work here is strictly of the in-house producer-for-hire aesthetic, so everything lies at the feet of our host. This was Sigel’s to lose, and fuck, did he ever. Yikes.

2. BEANIE (MACK BITCH)
Petition to celebrate Beanie Sigel’s pronunciation of the word “bitch”, especially on “Beanie (Mack Bitch)”, in the same way we would Too $hort’s wielding of his favorite word or Bob Odenkirk screaming, “Goddamnit!” on Mr. Show. Our host’s antagonistic shit-talk is the true draw of this Just Blaze-produced track, whose instrumental was always a bit too playful and radio-ready for my tastes, as though Blaze were very consciously doing an impression of Erick Sermon’s work on here. Beans more than makes up for the repetitive beat’s shortcomings, delivering three verses of fuck-around-and-find-out venom at the listener while cracking the occasional joke (see: the Jay-Z line at the end of the final verse) or simply talking his shit (see: the rest of the song). There’s a hint of nostalgia that comes with the track as a standard feature, so I’d never say this was trash, but I’ve also never really enjoyed Blaze’s instrumental, so I can’t recommend this one on good faith to today’s younger hip hop heads. But Sigel sounded great.

3. SO WHAT YOU SAYING (FEAT. MEMPHIS BLEEK)
Speaking of Erick Sermon impressions, Just Blaze converts the subtext into text on “So What You Saying”, an homage-slash-direct riff on EPMD’s “So Wat Cha Sayin’”, down to the nearly-identical instrumental. Beans and guest Memphis Bleek cast themselves as Erick and Parish, respectively, and if you find the mere thought of Bleek cosplaying as PMD upsetting, then my Lord is this not going to be enjoyable for you. Not that this would be a substantial listen for anybody else, of course – Beans and Bleek are merely swinging their dicks around, talking mad shit while using E-Double and P’s lyrics as a blueprint. And they sound fine! Sigel and Bleek are having obvious fun here, embracing their shared love for the genre while still presenting themselves as heirs to the Roc-A-Fella throne. “So What You Saying” is a goofy distraction that’s entertaining to listen to, nothing more. It’ll never replace EPMD’s original, but nobody was expecting it to. Do you need to add this one to your playlists? Fuck no you don’t. But it’ll make you crack a smile at least once.

4. GET DOWN
Just Blaze turns in an uncharacteristic instrumental that sounds more like a polished Alchemist impersonation than his own handiwork. It’s pretty interesting, if a bit repetitive, but our host clearly saw the benefit in his producer branching out, as the beat is allowed to play without interruption at both ends of the audio track for “Get Down”, which is otherwise a three-verse smackdown of Sigel’s perceived enemies, coke raps and violent bursts sharing screen time. Blaze’s beat plays as though it were originally crafted for someone else (the late Prodigy comes to mind), but Beans steals it for himself with an aggressive performance that plays well with not just the dramatic loop, but also with the previous track, ensuring a place for both “Get Down” and “So What You Sayin’” in the same artistic catalog. Even the scratched-in Bleek vocals didn’t bother me. This shit was nice.

5. I DON’T DO MUCH
The whiplash induced by shifting from Just Blaze’s dramatic intensity to Rick Rock’s umpteenth iteration of the same Rick Rock beat could be fatal – consult your physician before pressing ‘play’ on “I Don’t Do Much”. Seriously, Rock’s neat sounds like a slower variation of Jay-Z’s “Change The Game.” Heads may be interested in hearing a much calmer Beanie Sigel on here, who speaks matter-of-factly about the little work he claims to do when the reality is that he just does different work than most, which was a nice approach, if not exactly as conversational as his label boss. My issue was that Sigel really doesn’t do much on “I Don’t Do Much”: his verses are kind of boring and provide very little reason to believe that he’s capable of doing any of the shit he promises here, a byproduct of the failure of the track and not a critique of Sigel’s career as a Broad Street bully. Didn’t care for this much.

6. FOR MY N----S (FEAT. DAZ DILLINGER)
Rick Rock cashes another paycheck and hands over yet another version of the same instrumental he’s been trying to master his entire career. At least “For My N----s” is slightly different: it shares DNA with “I Don’t Do Much” but plays more in the melody sandbox, not unlike Pharrell Williams’s early beats right when Chad Hugo stopped being credited on Neptunes productions. Sigel, for his part, turns in a rather mainstream-friendly trio of stanzas, talking mad shit while trying to appeal to the West Coast hip hop heads who may not have looked in his direction if not for Rick Rock’s involvement. The performance was a bit hollow, as though our host were rapping while checking boxes on a list he held in the booth, but it wasn’t bad. What is bad is how guest stars Daz and (an uncredited) Kurupt, the duo also known as Tha Dogg Pound, only pop up for a brief outro. Seriously, bro? Why even include these guys if you’re just going to waste their time like this?

7. WATCH YOUR BITCHES
Credit where credit is due: Beanie Sigel has no interest in sticking with just one sound, choosing instead to mix it up just to keep himself entertained, if not anyone else. Hence 88-Keys’s beat for “Watch Your Bitches”, a 1970’s-approximating funk-soul loop that our host quickly turns into a song about his pimp game in the vein of Dolemite (whose actor, Rudy Ray Moore, is even name-checked). “Watch Your Botches” is just as misogynistic as both that title and that description would make it seem, which grows tiresome as the track progresses – hell, even Sigel seems to get tired of the subject matter as he rounds third here. The instrumental was pretty good, and Sigel sticks to the theme admirably, but the song itself was a nonstarter.

8. THINK IT’S A GAME (FEAT. FREEWAY, JAY-Z, & YOUNG CHRIS)
Freeway’s “What We Do” was an excellent collaboration with his Roc-A-Fella brethren, featuring a fantastic Jay-Z verse, a banging Just Blaze instrumental, and a star-making turn from Beardy himself. The weakest link (when compared to the other contributions, anyway) was Sigel, so I totally get why he’s want to revisit (most of) this formula for The Reason. “Think It’s A Game” sounds like a leftover from The Dynasty: Roc La Familia, except with State Property members filling out the ranks instead of Bleek and Amil, and it’s… alright. It’s fine. Big Demi’s instrumental never changes and becomes mildly fatigued as the fourth (fourth!) verse begins, and Saint Nick’s hook is to the point, but bland as shit. I will say that the verses themselves are decent-to-good, with the “What We Do” team flexing all over this bitch while Young Chris, of the duo Young Gunz, struggles to keep up with the rest of the class. I do wish “Think It’s A Game” were a better song, though.

9. MAN’S WORLD
No I.D. gives Sigel a James Brown-sampling instrumental that was originally made for Jay-Z’s The Blueprint but in no way could have ever fit onto that Hov project. The beat itself is alright – Dion chops up the unmistakable “It’s A Man’s, Man’s, Man’s World” throughout, which makes this sound the least like his better-known production work and more like a legitimate rap song. Given the title, it should be no surprise that Sigel takes a swig from his bottle of misogyny brew again, this time even assigning stereotypically female attributes to the undesirables in a rather appalling way (“fuck them bitch-ass n----s wearing thongs and skirts,”; “It’s a man’s world, n---a, sit down you girl n----s”). I understand the title of the song, but our host’s vitriol seems to come from a much deeper place, which makes this a difficult listen overall.

10. GANGSTA, GANGSTA (FEAT. KURUPT)
Kurupt, who you’ll recall appeared in an uncredited role as Beanie Sigel’s hypeman during the outro for “For My N----s”, returns by himself for “Gangsta, Gangsta”, but he only provides the chorus, as our host seems to have discovered that a Kurupt verse wouldn’t have sounded very good over this early Kanye West instrumental. Sigel handles the verses for dolo instead, his shit-talk and violent tendencies overtaking the track (“Ay money, shut the fuck up / It’s only a stick-up") before he powers through with the type of coke rap that comes from a grizzled veteran who doesn’t have time for games. Ye’s loop sounded fine, if absolutely nothing like the shit he’s on today, and Sigel at least seems to feel comfortable here. Kurupt’s presence must simply be to correct the oversight from before, because he adds absolutely nothing to the equation.

11. TALES OF AS HUSTLER (FEAT. OMILLIO SPARKS)
Really fucking boring. “Tales of a Hustler” is exactly the type of song Sigel should excel at, his knowledge of the streets and the drug game on full display as he takes the listener through average days in his life, but the end product here eschews the lessons he may have learned in favor of bland boasts-n-bullshit that fail to break any new ground. What’s worse is the guest spit from fellow State Property stalwart Omillio Sparks, whose opening verse (and hook) suck the life out of Sha-Self’s already-soulless beat with his generic bars and delivery. Whatever you imagine that could go wrong on a rap song, goes wrong on “Tales of a Hustler”, although our host’s threats to kidnap your family members starting “from tall nephews to small nieces” was both dark and grimly amusing, I guess.

12. MOM PRAYING (FEAT. SCARFACE)
Just Blaze returns to the boards for the final three tracks of the evening, the first of which is “Mom Praying”, on which Beanie Sigel and guest star Scarface wax poetically about loving their mothers (and grandmothers, at least in Sigel’s case). The instrumental is built around a soulful sample lifted from The Dramatics’ “It Ain’t Gonna Rain On Nobody’s Parade But Mine” and, honestly, it’s so paint-by-numbers in its execution that it’s a little weird that Blaze got to the source material first. (According to the man himself, he didn’t – Kanye West recorded a track to his own chop of the sample, one that remains unreleased to this day because “Mom Praying” beat him to the marketplace.) Lyrically, though, it’s hard to deny the passion these two carry for the maternal figures in their lives. Sigel, in particular, sounds terrifying as he threatens to straight-up murder anybody who would dare go after his mom, while Scarface takes a more philosophical approach to his mother’s visions of the afterlife. The music didn’t do it for me, but Sigel and Facemob sounded pretty goddamned good.

13. STILL GOT LOVE FOR YOU (FEAT. JAY-Z & RELL)
“Mom Praying” will serve to remind the listener that Beanie Sigel also has a song about his father in his catalog, the far-less-positive Jay-Z track “Where Have You Been”, where the paternal figure is, er… let’s say he comes out looking far less in the eyes of the artists. “Still Got Love For You” is both an official sequel to “Where Have You Been” and a course correction, as Sigel appears to have tasked guest star Hov with reversing the vitriol spilled simply because of how their respective fathers felt about their depiction on the original song, which seems like an odd creative choice, as it would appear to negate everything these two offered in the first place, removing that track’s power and pain. Sigel and Jay own their conflicted feelings about their fathers, though, using their verses on here to talk about how they “Still Got Love For You” while absolutely hating their guts, and at least the passion remains (even if Sigel gets some of the facts wrong – he never actually told his absentee father to “put [your] mouth on [my] dick” on the original song like he claims here, although he certainly wasn’t hurting for other insults), so the two songs combined give a more complete picture of how difficult it can be to reconcile your feelings about your parents and your upbringing from moment to moment. (Especially when Jay-Z veers left and starts screaming at his dad again, starting with, “The only thing you taught me is to face my fears, coward,” (emphasis mine), and then he just keeps hammering away at him from there.) Just Blaze’s beat, unfortunately, is a poor fit for the subject matter because the sample is so recognizable: the average hip hop head of a certain age will hear the Isaac Hayes riff and immediately think of Biz Markie, which likely wasn’t the intention. I appreciate how this song lifts the veil on the complicated thoughts from its participants, because life is gray more than it is cut and dry, but this was yet another track where the lyrics ran circles around the music. Also, you read that correctly, that is Roc-A-Fella crooner Rell providing the hook.

14. WHAT YOUR LIFE LIKE 2
The Reason ends with another sequel, this one for The Truth’s “What Your Life Like”, which was a first-person detailing of life behind penitentiary bars. “What Your Life Like 2” picks up where Sigel left off the first time, our host continuing to describe his mindstate in these harsh conditions. The original track was a highlight from Sigel’s debut due to our host’s attention to detail and the obvious pain he felt while reliving these moments. You get more of the same here, with the added bonus of an aside where Sigel touches on how a client-turned-informant was the reason he ended up in prison in the first place. Otherwise, the beats are pretty much identical to before, although Sigel is certainly no worse for wear, his bars sounding fresh even with the duplicated subject matter. Blaze’s final instrumental of the project is appropriately dramatic and helps keeps things moving, even when Sigel himself falls off the beat – it isn’t memorable, but it does its job. A pointedly bleak way to end the album, but certainly not a bad way.

FINAL THOUGHTS: Beanie Sigel’s The Reason is the rare sophomore effort that sounds better than its predecessor. That isn’t to say that this is a perfect album, obviously – some of the instrumentals are lacking, and our host’s tendency toward sinister threats with very rare moments of deviation can grow redundant throughout your listen. But while Beans isn’t the most lyrical miracle from Philadelphia (or anywhere, really), and there definitely are better rappers than him within his own crew (*cough* Freeway *cough* Peedi Crakk *cough*), the man wields a charisma behind the mic that makes his every word seem compelling, even when he isn’t saying anything new.

The Reason is apparently a rather polarizing album, a fact I wasn’t aware of until after I began researching it. I’m not exactly sure why – it has its high points and shortcomings just like most every other rap album in existence. If you're familiar enough with Beans but have never listened to this album, rest assured it sounds exactly the way you think it would. Maybe his fans grew tired of sitting through ten variations of the same shit-talk, with the remainder proving to be the only times where Sigel tackled different subject matter. (Coincidentally, those times he veered off-course align with the better tracks on the project, for the most part.) My best guess is that there were too many instances where the musical backing stood out for the wrong reasons (see: the Rick Rock tracks), inadvertently proving that Beanie Sigel is pretty far from being a versatile artist. Granted (no pun intended), having every single line sound like it would rob and stab you in a dark alley if given sentience doesn’t always make for the most entertaining songs, but Sigel proves that he’s willing to laugh at himself a tiny bit on The Reason, which humanizes the man just enough to make it through the project, as does the sincere emotion he allows the listener to witness toward the end. Still, the album itself has enough heat to warrant the time and effort, and even Sigel seems aware that he can be more potent in smaller doses, limiting himself to fourteen tracks at a time when rappers felt the need to record and release every single motherfucking thought that popped into their head. Even the bad songs on here could have been much worse – they could have been recorded by Memphis Bleek. I kid, I kid. But the good tracks are extra, and I mean that in a positive manner.

BUY OR BURN? It may read as though I was being extra hard on Sigel throughout the write-up, but that’s simply because I’m pretty demanding when it comes to hip hop. Still, The Reason provides more than enough, er, um, I don’t know, I can’t think of the word right now, shit this is embarrassing, to warrant an actual purchase as opposed to a stream. Throw a few bucks Beanie Sigel’s way – he’ll certainly appreciate it.

BEST TRACKS: “Get Down”; “What Your Life Like 2”; “Mom Praying”; “Still Got Love For You”; “So What You Sayin’”

-Max

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