My Gut Reaction: Fat Joe - Me, Myself & I (November 14, 2006)

Me, Myself & I is the seventh solo album from Joseph "Fat Joe" Cartagena, and its most notable aspect can be found on its back cover:

I know it's here because of the album's title, but come on, that is hilarious, and I, for one, appreciate how Joey Crack was accepting all of the responsibility, and the blame, for his career trajectory, at least back in the day. It's a power move heretofore unseen in most of the hip hop community, and I ask that you both take a moment to applaud his decision.

Okay, that's enough.

My Gut Reaction: Fat Joe & Remy Ma - Plata O Plomo (February 17, 2017)

So real quick, for the folks who may be newer to the blog or might have returned to it after I finally remembered my Facebook password: Joseph “Fat Joe” Cartagena is one of many artists whose career I’m following here on Hip Hop Isn’t Dead. However, unlike nearly everyone else in the sidebar, I’m looking at his body of work in reverse chronological order. I’m mostly doing this as a lark: I think it’s kind of funny to review someone’s catalog this way, as though I’ll be able to pinpoint the exact moment where his career went off the rails. The problem is that Fat Joe’s still actively making music, so while I may be going backwards in time, he keeps dropping new stuff that I have to eventually work in if I plan on ever crossing him off of my project list.

Which brings us to the subject of today’s post, Plata o Plomo.

For Promotional Use Only: Fat Joe - The Crack Era (June 16, 2008)

My ridiculous series on the albums of Joseph “Fat Joe” Cartagena continues today with a side quest of sorts. Longtime readers will remember that, for absolutely no reason and in a manner that is increasingly frustrating for me, I chose to attack Joey Crack’s discography in reverse chronological order, which, by the very nature of his work, means that I’ll have to sit through the man’s more mainstream efforts before finally reaching his underground street shit. But while Large Joseph found himself more familiar with radio playlists and the requirements he needed to meet to appease his label overlords, he still kept an eye, if not an ear, to the streets, resulting in an official mixtape, The Crack Era, released at some point in time between his seventh and eighth solo albums (Me, Myself & I and The Elephant In The Room, respectively).

My Gut Reaction: Fat Joe - The Elephant In The Room (March 11, 2008)

Nothing says “I’m back! Sort of!” on this blog like picking up a loose narrative thread. Today, I’m doing just that, as I listen to Joseph “Fat Joe” Cartagena’s eighth solo project, The Elephant In The Room, as a part of my series where I follow his career in reverse chronological order. As he is still active within our chosen genre, there was the risk that his discography could grow unwieldy for this type of project after a two-year hiatus: luckily, I was actually more caught up than I thought, as Large Joseph only managed to drop one album (his collaboration with Remy Ma, Plata O Plomo) while I was off doing God knows what, and I’ll get to that when I get to that, but for now, I’m still interested in discovering the exact point when he gave up on the street life (relatively speaking, as he’s never truly left it behind) in favor of Radioland, a magical place filled with the likes of Ja Rule, Lil Wayne, and Ashanti.

And I have a feeling, based on a glance at the tracklist, that I won’t find the answer on The Elephant In The Room.

For The Max-Approved Mixtape: Fat Joe - "My Prerogative"

Artist: Fat Joe featuring Armageddon

Title: "My Prerogative"

Producer: Armageddon

Album: Don Cartagena (1998)

In 1998, Joseph "Fat Joe" Cartagena was riding an unexpected wave of popularity, one brought upon by his affiliation with the late Big Punisher, whose debut album, Capital Punishment, was met with both critical acclaim and respectable sales.  Since he's the one that put Big Pun on in the first place (let's pretend The Beatnuts don't exist for the purpose of this statement), Joey Crack felt he deserved all the credit, and as such, we all witnessed a resurgence of interest in his solo career, for better or for worse.  He parlayed this into Don Cartagena, his 1998 bid for mainstream acceptance that obviously featured Pun, but also Puff Daddy in a supporting role, because that's how he rolled that week.  Joe's ego has never recovered, but that doesn't mean he wasn't still capable of putting out some good music.

Don Cartagena features the first credited appearance of his newly-formed group Terror Squad, which had absorbed Pun's Full-A-Clips Crew in its entirety, since Fat Joe didn't like Big Pun to have nice things.  However, he wasn't above charity, so buried deep within the bowels of Don Cartagena is "My Prerogative", a solo track featuring group member Armageddon.  Yep, that's right: even though the credits say otherwise, Large Joseph doesn't have anything to do with today's playlist selection, even though it does appear on his album.

"My Prerogative" is an Armageddon solo showcase on which he both produces and spits two verses and a hook.  The beat consists of shrieks and stabs set to a shuffling drum beat, and sounds much better than I just described: it's pretty dope, and it's catchy enough to grab a few new ears, had the label thought enough of it to try to push it as even just a promotional single.  It's a simple instrumental that barely changes, but the song itself doesn't last long enough for that to become a problem.

Armageddon's verses allow the man to stand apart from his crew, which, at the time, was a sausage-fest featuring Pun and Joe alongside Cuban Link, Prospect, and Triple Seis, most of whom now have their own problems with Large Joseph, having cut ties with the Squad long ago.  His bars, while playful, are full of your typical boasts 'n bullshit, but delivered confidently and skillfully; perhaps the fact that he produced his own song is the reason why he sounds so comfortable behind the mic.  "My Prerogative" is certainly a much more lyrical performance than one would have expected from a Fat Joe album, although, once again, Joe isn't a factor on here, so yay!  

This is essentially an interlude, not unlike the ones from the D-12 albums where they allowed Obie Trice and Young Zee to try to reach a wider audience, but Armageddon makes the most of his three minutes (the last portion of the track is devoted to an skit which, ugh) in the sun by unleashing a monster behind the mic.  It's the kind of track that would have earned Armageddon a cult following had it made its debut on, say, a DJ Clue mixtape, as opposed to on a major label rap album, since I never heard anyone else singing this song's praises when it first dropped.  But that's okay: we can turn that all around today.  Give "My Prerogative" a listen, or if you're already familiar with Don Cartagena, a second chance, and you'll find an enjoyable banger that holds up, even if the rest of the album may not.  (I say "may not" because I haven't yet gotten to Don Cartagena in my ongoing project and don't really remember what most of it sounds like.  But when I finally do, you'll at least already know how I feel about this one song.)

Do you agree or disagree with this selection?  Discuss below.

-Max

My Gut Reaction / For Promotional Use Only: Fat Joe - The Darkside III (August 26, 2013)

One of the problems with trying to be clever and writing about an active artist's back catalog in reverse chronological order, thereby tracking their progress (or regression) throughout their career, comes when the artist in question continues releasing new material. I sort-of have that problem with LL Cool J, and I most certainly am seeing that with Joe “Fat Joe” Cartagena, whose discography I've barely touched since I threw him onto my list, mostly because the man won't stop working. I suppose it isn't really a “problem” to Large Joseph: at least he derives some sort of financial reciprocation for all of the work he puts in? One can only hope.

My Gut Reaction: Fat Joe - Jealous Ones Still Envy 2 (J.O.S.E. 2) (October 6. 2009)

Joseph Cartagena's ninth solo album, Jealous Ones Still Envy 2 (which I will refer to, as the project's very own cover does, as J.O.S.E. 2 from this point forward) is ostensibly a sequel to his 2001 release Jealous Ones Still Envy.  Which itself was, ostensibly, a sequel to his 1995 album Jealous One's Envy.  Which makes this a sequel to a sequel, which already doesn't bode well by me: the third entry in any series, even one as poorly planned and loosely-connected as whatever the shit Large Joseph was trying to pull here, tends to not be a good idea in most mediums.

However, since my whole side project-slash-experiment here is to work through Fat Joe's catalog in reverse chronological order, perhaps I'll have a different take on J.O.S.E. 2 than what I'm sure most of you two are assuming I'll have.  I probably won't, but it's nice to know that I have the option.

My Gut Reaction / For Promotional Use Only: Fat Joe - The Darkside Vol. 2 (October 31, 2011)

Leave it up to Joseph Cartagena, the given name of rap artist Fat Joe, to fuck up my series on him right from the jump.  In case you two haven't been paying attention, I was planning on tackling Joey Crack's back catalog LL Cool J-style, meaning that I was going to work my way backwards through all of his albums as an experiment of sorts.  So of course the guy fucking drops a new project right after the first article posts.  (Okay, not right after: it was almost a year ago when I started this experiment.)  It is just a mixtape, which means I would normally ignore it, but because Large Joseph saw fit to call it The Darkside Vol. 2, marking it as a direct sequel to the subject of my first Fat Joe article, The Darkside Vol. 1, I have no choice but to deviate from my original plan in order to fulfill my self-imposed mission.  

Not that any of you two care about this shit anyway: I'm pretty sure most of you turned out the moment you noticed that Fat Joe was the subject of today's update.  

Anyway, back to The Darkside Vol. 2.  The first volume in this series was heralded (mostly by Fat Joe) as a return to the dark, violent street rap that our host first cut his teeth on way back in the 1990s, when he was a respected artist with an affiliation with the Diggin' In The Crates crew and an ear for talent (see: his signing and nurturing of the late Big Punisher).  It ultimately didn't pan out that way for the most part, but according to my own review, the first entry in this series wasn't so awful that it stopped the whole enterprise in its tracks or anything.  Large Joseph had intended to follow up that project with The Darkside Vol. 2 almost immediately, but apparently had a change of heart, since the second and third volumes of this series were intended to trigger Fat Joe's retirement.  So he changed his mind, as all rappers who are prone to promising new projects tend to do almost immediately, but Joey Crack knows which side his bread is buttered (whatever the fuck that means), so instead of forcing the few fans he still currently has to wait, he decided to make The Darkside Vol. 2 a free mixtape, available for download starting on Halloween 2011.

The Darkside Vol. 2 consists of only ten tracks, eight of which are produced by someone named Mark Henry, and features a handful of guest stars (one of whom doesn't even contribute a fucking verse - more on that later), but Fat Joe tackles the bulk of it on his own, in an attempt to recapture his youth and render himself relevant in the rap game once again.  Which will never happen for him, at least as a rapper: maybe if he moved into music production, he might be able to extend his shelf life by a few years.  (His Terror Squad Records, a label that is pretty much defunct today, once signed producer DJ Premier, generally considered to be one of the greatest to ever do it, so it's not as though Joey would be hurting for possible mentors.)

But it's cute that he's trying so hard.

1.  WELCOME TO THE DARKSIDE (FEAT. FRENCH MONTANA)

A note to all artists, whether veteran or rookie: it's usually not a good idea to start your album off with the voice of an entirely different artists.  It's even worse when the guy who kicks off the project, in this case French Montana, has nothing to do with your camp.  Joey's questionable artistic direction aside, I was thrilled to discover that "Welcome To The Darkside" is not, in fact, a mixtape rap album intro as the title would suggest, nay, demand.  That doesn't make this track automatically good, or even all that enjoyable, though: over an inane instrumental from RoJ & TwinkiE (yeah, me neither) that heavily mirrors how shitty hip hop sounds these days, Large Joseph spits two below-average verses that make one wonder just how he and Big Punisher became friends in the first place, and Frenchy's hook is so obnoxious and unbearable that you'll want to choke out his mother just because.  I don't have a good feeling about this mixtape.

2.  DOPEMAN (FEAT. JADAKISS & DRE)

It's tempting to say that the reason The Darkside Vol. 2 was released as a free mixtape and not as an actual album is because of the sample from The Beatles' "Yesterday", which opens this track: no matter how much cocaine Joey pretended to move, he would never be able to afford to clear that shit.  At least Large Joseph isn't a dummy, for the most part: the hook, performed by Dre (of production duo Cool & Dre,who may be the two only remaining members of the Terror Squad, as is my understanding), is also filled with references to the Fab Four, using the names of each band member as a different variety of drug in such a horrible fashion that you will want to shake your head, throw The Darkside Vol. 2 into a lake (or, you know, delete it from your hard drive: no need to get all dramatic on me here), and listen to pretty much any Beatles music you can find, just to erase your memory of this terribly weak shit.  Also, Jadakiss was on here, too.

3.  SO FLY (FEAT. ARLAND)

Hey, Joey, let me ask you a question.  You were aware that The Darkside Vol. 2 was a mixtape, right?  I assume so: you've been in the business for a long time, so I have to believe that you know what goes into deciding what makes the final cut of any project.  So why the hell did you include a song with a wimpy R&B chorus (courtesy of guest star Arland) on the second volume of a series intended to celebrate your return to your hardcore hip hop roots?  Just exactly what audience were you trying to attract?  And the fact that you did this on a song that features an interesting (if a bit cheesy) Mark Henry beat and some actual decent verses from yourself blows my mind.  If you're trying to play a practical joke on the listener, now is not the time.  Get your shit together.  Love. Max.

4.  BIG BUSINESS

On the first track from The Darkside Vol. 2 to not feature a guest of any sort, Large Joseph proves that he occasionally watches the news by referencing both the Occupy Wall Street movement and Herman Cain's "9-9-9" tax plan...all within two bars.  And now that you're caught up with current events, feel free to enjoy Joey's Rick Ross-esque flow, and I mean that not in a "Fat Joe likes to rap about cocaine"-kind of way: I literally mean that Fat Joe, a guy who was one of the early members of the Diggin' In The Crates crew, actually sounds like he's consciously mimicking Officer Ricky's style.  "Big Business", taken from the Lily Tomlin / Bette Midler film of the same name, isn't entirely awful: Mark Henry's beat was passable, and the decision to skip the hook in favor of a dialogue sample was kind of inspired.  But Joey Crack himself is pissing me the fuck off.

5.  ANGELS SAY

Poor Large Joseph.  Every time he wants to sit down and reminisce about bitches (only those of the "bad" variety, of course), he's rudely interrupted by the sounds of gunfire or by one of his weed carriers delivering terrible news.  But our host doesn't want or need your pity.  No sir, all Joey Crack wants is to fucking talk about bad bitches while alleged "angels" half-ass what is supposed to constitute a "chorus".  This track wasn't entirely awful, though.  Fat Joe completely loses the point of the song approximately three words into the first verse, but I'd be lying if I said that I outright hated this.  It isn't all that good or anything, but for Joey, it'll do, pig.  It'll do.

6.  PUSHING KEYS (FEAT. RAEKWON)

Our host earns twenty points for convincing Raekwon the Chef, a man who has been on a bit of a comeback streak as of late, to appear on The Darkside Vol. 2, but then loses everything, including his shirt, his car keys, his fortune, his family, and the respect of his coworkers by only getting the guy to phone in some bullshit ad-libs that close out "Pushing Keys" in a wholly nonsensical way.  Joe's verses, broken up by an overly wordy hook that I didn't realize even was the hook until I heard him reference Alicia Keys for the second time, are semi-tolerable (over a terrible Mark Henry beat) because the listener is waiting on pins and needles for Raekwon to completely overshadow his host, but that moment never comes to pass, and now I just feel fucking cheated.  Nice work, dick.

7.  DROP A BODY

This was, apparently, the first song leaked from the project, identifiable as such because our host advertises that The Darkside Vol. 2 is "coming soon" at the end of it.  Over a beat that essentially rips off what Just Blaze was going for on Jay-Z's "U Don't Know", Large Joseph adopts a Hova-esque conversational flow that clearly illuminated his modern-day shortcomings: specifically, the fact that he no longer has a style to call his own, as he brazenly steals from any and all influences in his path, morphing himself into the image of said influences as if he were more malleable than gold.  It's kind of weird that he would look to Jay-Z's 2001 album The Blueprint for the inspiration for a coke rap song in 2011 with an asinine chorus that conjures up absurd images of dropping cadavers onto your enemies as a shock tactic, but I'm not questioning Joey's artistic mind.  Just his methods.  And his usefulness moving forward in our chosen genre. 

8.  MY LORD

Large Joseph uses Mark Henry's trifling loop of a beat to completely avoid talking about religion, unless he's trying to imply that all he worships are kilos of pure uncut cocaine, in which case the guy's priorities are more fucked than I had ever believed possible.  This song may last for less than two minutes on paper, but it feels like it goes on for at least ten times that amount, as you'll spend the one-verse wonder trying to figure out just how much Fat Joe must hate his fans.

9.  FUCK THEM OTHER N----S

Mark Henry's instrumental sounded better suited for an introductory missive and not so much a lethargic threat appearing near the end of the project.  Our host's two verses weren't awful, but he sounded awfully generic, especially when compared to all of the jerks I heard on Sirius XM's Hip Hop Nation during my drive home from work.  All I have to say is this: when the chorus, liberally borrowed from C-Murder's chorus from Snoop Dogg's "Down 4 My N----z", makes you want to actually listen to more music from a No Limit Soldier, you know that Fat Joe has fucking failed.

10.  AROUND THE WORLD (FEAT. ARLAND)

This was not the Daft Punk cover I was promised. 

SHOULD YOU TRACK IT DOWN?  Um, no.  The Darkside Vol. 2 is an ultimate waste of ten audio tracks that will collect virtual dust on your hard drive, and you can put that space to better use downloading porn.  Fat Joe appears to have almost completely lost whatever spark he had when he first conjured up this particular series of projects, and he feels that aping whatever the radio sounds like today is the best route he has toward longevity.  And he's wrong: I don't think anybody out there was asking for a second guy to sound like Rick Ross, and with everyone and their respective mothers rhyming about selling cocaine, that sub-genre has also grown stale.  The Darkside Vol. 2 is also not really all that dark: there are a couple of bleak spots, sure, but two of the songs feature R&B singer Arland, and it's kind of hard to reflect on your life choices when Joey is trying to get you to dance and/or convince a female audience to care.  The first volume in this series had at least one song that kept it from being submitted to the scarp heap: The Darkside Vol. 2 has no such luck.  Avoid this one at all costs, unless you enjoy punishing yourself.  In which case, please refer to that pornography I referred to earlier that you should have downloaded instead.

-Max

RELATED POSTS:

If you care to continue, this link will help you along your Fat Joe quest.

My Gut Reaction: Fat Joe - The Darkside Vol. 1 (July 27, 2010)

Joseph Cartagena is one of those guys who has carved out a niche in hip hop without ever really appealing to me.  I guess you could say that about a lot of rappers, but Fat Joe especially mystifies me: the man started out as one of the more "gangsta" members of the critically-acclaimed Diggin' In The Crates crew (alongside the likes of Showbiz, A.G., Lord Finesse, Buckwild, and the late Big L, among others) and has somehow ended up as the last man standing in his Terror Squad, a group in which the only other current employees are production duo Cool & Dre.  He has burned through friendships left and right, severing partnerships with the drop of a hat and starting fights that he knows he could never win without ever looking back.  And his earlier albums talked up a violent past and a vengeful present, while his later output aimed squarely for a mainstream audience obsessed with commercial Trackmasters-esque beats and guest appearances by Lil' Wayne, Ja Rule, and Ashanti.  

But perhaps his worst offense of all is his piggybacking on the passing of his friend, Christopher "Big Punisher" Rios, as Fat Joe continues to evoke his name whenever he feels it to be appropriate, as if he's the Latino Puff Daddy to Pun's Notorious B.I.G.  Big Pun remains the only viable component in Large Joseph's long career (and the best artist that he has ever signed), but that hasn't stopped the artist also known as Joey Crack from continuing to believe that his own career hasn't yet reached its zenith.

It's not that I have no interest in Large Joseph whatsoever: I recognize that the man has clearly worked his ass off to still be around in our fickle chosen genre, and I still kind of like Terror Squad's "Lean Back" (but not for Joey's performance, admittedly).  It's that I don't fully believe in Fat Joe.  I don't understand his journey: how exactly does a guy come from an established hip hop pedigree and end up flopping around on the side of the river to the beat of a 1980's sample?  Fat Joe has been recording for the radio audience for at least a decade at this point, and yet nobody feels this to be a negative trait.  Oh well; I guess there's no shame in wanting as many people as possible to hear your work.

Except that Fat Joe himself is obviously embarrassed of this turn of events, as his most recent album, The Darkside Vol. 1, was conceived to only include "dark" tracks, in a calculated effort to win back his hardcore audience (you know, the one that moved on several years ago).  With this project, Large Joseph decided that he wanted his street credibility back, and he set about to take it by force.

Sorry, but that's really all I can come up with for this intro.  The Darkside Vol. 1 is Fat Joe's tenth solo album, which is about seven more than I care to listen to and about ten more than he truly deserved to have.  But somehow, the motherfucker manages to sell records: even though this project found him signing to E1 Entertainment after getting dropped from a major label, he still managed to move a good number of units, confirming that this will almost certainly be the first of a fucking trilogy. 

In the vein of my series on LL Cool J, today begins my experimental reverse chronological look into Large Joseph's body of work, in which I hope to pinpoint exactly where everything fell apart.  I also hope to discover just why the man still has fans to this day, as nobody I know will even admit to have listened to his shit in the past.

1. INTRO

Large Joseph uses his rap album intro allocation to invite “bitch ass n----z” to The Darkside Vol. 1, launching into a one-verse missive soon afterward. His voice already sounds insincere, as most rappers who have actually touched a small amount of success and now have no business taking about the lure of the streets tend to: this is probably why I stopped paying much attention to the guy's career in the first place. His use of this Scram Jones beat is even questionable: it sounds like a violent headgame as filtered through a Clear Channel radio station, so it's painfully obvious that Joseph is still attempting to serve his mainstream masters with this album. His quick jab at Curtis Jackson at the end of his verse also sounded desperate and unfunny. Sometimes I wonder why I even bother with this genre.

2. VALLEY OF DEATH

If Kanye West's career had hit a brick wall and he was forced to craft beats just to pay the rent on that oversized luxury ego of his, it's entirely possible that he might have crafted a shitty soul-sampling instrumental quite similar to what overrated production duo Cool & Dre have done for “Valley Of Death”. Joey Crack undermines his own violent threats (all of which aren't very memorable or even the least bit scary) with a chorus that includes the chanting of the phrase, “Get money!”, which renders this entire fucking song pointless. Whoever keeps supporting Fat Joe and allows him to continue releasing music really needs to stop, as they are doing Joseph no favors.

3. I AM CRACK

Joseph attempts to drive down a creative lane with this song, an extended metaphor linking our host with crack-cocaine, and truth be told, it's obvious that he actually put some fucking effort into the track. It isn't great, but it's a start. Just Blaze's instrumental doesn't fit well with the overall theme, but the sound bites from journalists actually help develop the mood, even of Joey's bars aren't always interesting enough to earn the attention of the audience. Definitely could have been a lot worse, though.

4. KILO (FEAT. CLIPSE & CAM'RON)

Let's get the obvious criticism out of the way: Large Joseph and producer DJ Infamous flat-out ripped off Ghostface Killah's Raekwon-assisted, MoSS-produced song of the same name, using the same Schoolhouse Rock sample to describe bricks of cocaine in metric system terms. Also adding to the confusion is the fact that Malice (of the Clipse) even guest-starred on the official remix to Ghost's song (from the reprehensible Def Jam cash-in Ghost Deini The Great). Thankfully, Malice doesn't recycle his vocals (he's stuck sharing a verse with his brother Pusha T, which is a depressing waste of natural resources), and DJ Infamous doesn't craft a carbon-copy of Pretty Toney's work. However, this track lacks heart: the empty cocaine rhymes from the Clipse, Large Joseph, and the artist formerly known as Killa Cam sound so paint-by-numbers that any random combination of four rappers could probably have delivered these lines in a similar fashion. I'm going to go listen to Ghost's song really quick, just to wash this shit out of my brain. I'll be right back.

5. RAPPERS ARE IN DANGER

After “Kilo”, I was afraid that this song would be the scene of a crime: the armed hijacking of KRS-One's “Rappaz R N Dainja”. But I was wrong: the two tracks only share a vocal sample. DJ Infamous, who seems to be cornering the market on creating rap songs that recall other, better tracks, crafts a beat which sounds inappropriately bombastic: this song is supposed to be a warning shot, not the victory lap. Large Joseph isn't up to the task, either: his generic verses prove that he is actually one of the problematic rappers in the industry that is in danger, as opposed to someone why is eagerly picking them off. Similar to the way I ended the “Kilo” review, I think I'll listen to The Blastmaster's song in an attempt to forget that this track ever happened.

6. (HA HA) SLOW DOWN (FEAT. YOUNG JEEZY)

Scoop DeVille's musical backing sounds fucking annoying as shit at the very beginning, but once the old-school drums kick in, the song becomes surprisingly entertaining, even if this is just Large Joseph's version of Jay-Z's Grammy award-winning “On To The Next One”, mixed with an LL Cool J sensibility. Joey isn't even the weakest link on here: that honor is bestowed upon his guest, Young Jeezy, who sounds so far out of his comfort zone that I pictured his eyes bursting out of their sockets while he suffocated, Total Recall-style. This track wasn't that bad, although a listener shouldn't have to sit through five full songs before they get to hear an entertaining diversion.

7. IF IT AIN'T ABOUT MONEY (FEAT. TREY SONGZ)

One thing I've noticed about Fat Joe's work on The Darkside Vol. 1 is that he no longer has a unique identity behind the mic: Joey seems content to ape whoever is hot at the moment, which is really fucking pathetic for someone who is (was?) a member of the Diggin' In The Crates crew. “If It Ain't About Money” is a mixture between a Lil' Wayne-type staccato beat (thanks to Cool and Dre's lack of creative inspiration) and a crappy Trey Songz effort, going so far as to actually include the overrated Trey Songz on the chorus. Large Joseph has become quite the chameleon in his old age, but if nobody is actually looking for you anymore, do you really exist in the first place?

8. NO PROBLEMS (FEAT. RICO LOVE)

Scoop DeVille's instrumental sounds like something Snoop Dogg would rhyme over today (which makes sense, as the two men have worked together in the past), but Joey Crack proves to be a good fit regardless, as he sounds like he's truly excited by the prospect of rapping for a living. The low-key Public Enemy samples set an undeniably sinister tone, and Joey manages to help the audience remember why he once mattered in our chosen genre. The R&B hook, provided by Rico Love, is a bit out of place, but he doesn't sound completely terrible, so this track works more often than not.

9. HOW DID WE GET HERE (FEAT. R. KELLY)

Rappers are either a very forgiving bunch, of else they have skeletons in their respective closets that they don't want exposed: this is the only way I can rationalize why artists continue to work with a guy who pisses on underage girls to get off (R. Kelly) or a guy who beat up (and bit) his pop star girlfriend (Chris Brown, who, in all fairness, isn't featured on The Darkside, Vol. 1: maybe Joey suddenly has standards?). Robert pitches in on Large Joseph's version of The Notorious B.I.G.'s “Juicy” had it been performed by a man at the end of his career instead of at the very beginning, and it sounds just as mainstream as a track featuring R. Kelly normally does. It isn't an awful song, but hip hop already has its “Juicy”, and Joey commits some severe blasphemy to Biggie on here that is hard to just gloss over.

10. MONEY OVER BITCHES (FEAT. TOO $HORT & TA)

Here's the deal: when I listened to my local library's CD copy of The Darkside Vol. 1, this song was listed as track number ten, but it isn't actually featured on the disc itself, due to some sort of error in mastering. (The physical CD skips from “How Did We Get Here” straight to “Heavenly Father”.) However, this song is featured on the iTunes version of the project, and is relatively easy to find online, so I had to hunt this fucker down in order to give a complete review, which is annoying as shit. (Since this album didn't sell very well, I don't see E1 chomping at the bit to apologize to both Joey and his fans.) Sue me, but I actually liked the cheesy 1980s vibe that Raw Uncut's beat brought to the table, although it really doesn't fit the dark vibe of the album as a whole. (So maybe it was left off on purpose? No, that doesn't make sense; then why would Joey list it on the back cover? But it doesn't fit on the album! Cue Max's head exploding...now.) Large Joseph and TA even sound alright enough: I didn't want to shut the song off immediately, anyway. The song falls apart when rap veteran Too $hort takes to the mic: he refuses to flow with the beat, choosing instead to rhyme using the same delivery he's driven into the ground for the past fifty years, and this time around, the fast-paced instrumental isn't as forgiving, as it makes him sound like a senile pimp. It is what it is.

11. HEAVENLY FATHER (FEAT. LIL' WAYNE)

Ah, there it is: I was waiting for Joey to invoke the name of Big Pun. (He might have done it elsewhere on the album for all I know, but his rhymes, for the most part, are boring as shit, so I might have simply glossed over it.) Interestingly enough, Joey Crack snags Lil' Weezy for a cameo, but only allows him to rap on the hook, which is either extremely foolish of the fucking smartest move ever, depending on what side of the fence you happen to live on. The Streetrunner beat plods along, and the high-pitched singing on the hook grates at the ears, but I actually don't question Joey's sincerity on this track. Weird.

12. I'M GONE

Joey Crack uses a DJ Premier instrumental for a one-verse wonder-slash-rap album outro, and it's nothing if not intriguing. Joseph appears to feel that hip hop died when Primo's Gang Starr counterpart Guru passed away, and he pays homage to him on here, which is all well and good until he claims to be Gang Starr, which made me itch uncontrollably. He uses the back half of the beat to run through a quick autobiography, even justifying why he went the mainstream route in the first place, and, perhaps most importantly, he acknowledges the D.I.T.C. crew (but fails to single out the late Big L for a posthumous shout-out). Primo's beat sounded alright at first, but it runs for longer than six minutes, so you're bound to grow as tired of it as I did. Still, not a completely terrible way to end an album.

The following is listed as a bonus track.

13. AT LAST SUPREMACY (FEAT. BUSTA RHYMES)

The intro (and chorus) to this song features a Busta Rhymes performance that sounds so much like Sticky Fingaz from Onyx that I wouldn't be surprised if he was paying some sort of backwards tribute to him. Cool and Dre's beat fails to claim supremacy over the rap game, but Joey Crack sounds decent, even a bit clever during his second verse, where he incorporates all of his album titles into a flimsy narrative as if he were a crappy GZA/Genius knockoff. But I have to say, this really wasn't awful.

THE LAST WORD: For the most part, Fat Joe's The Darkside Vol. 1 sucks. You knew that going in to this write-up, so if you're still reading right now, I appreciate it. What is a bit shocking is that Large Joseph isn't completely out of ideas: a handful of the songs on here were decent enough to warrant a second volume in this alleged series. Lyrically, the man wound up his career years ago, and he is prone to resorting to violent catchphrases and signing up multiple guest stars in an effort to distract any potential listener from his faults, but there are a couple of moments on The Darkside Vol. 1 that (a) aren't very dark, relatively speaking, and (b) remind you exactly why Fat Joe is still a part of our chosen genre. The DJ Premier-produced “I'm Gone” is probably the gem of this piece, and while it really isn't that great of a track, Large Joseph is a bit more honest with himself (and, by extension, the audience) on it. You two shouldn't look at The Darkside Vol. 1 for any discernible reason, but maybe you should listen to “I'm Gone” at least the once, just to hear what Fat Joe's career could have been, had he not made a blatant cash grab so early on.

-Max