N.O.R.E. - God's Favorite (June 25, 2002)

Victor “Noreaga” Santiago is a prime example of an artist whose solo career wasn't so much a choice as it was the only option remaining for him. After the (moderate – let's be clear, it's not like the guy has ever sold millions of copies of anything) success of his debut project, Capone-N-Noreaga's The War Report (released in 1997), Santiago found himself thrust into the public spotlight after his partner-in-rhyme Capone was very publicly serving out a prison sentence (one which he began before the album's release; there's even a few tracks on The War Report that directly reference Capone's time in the bing).

My Gut Reaction: Noreaga - Melvin Flynt - Da Hustler (August 24, 1999)

After the cantankerous mash-up of violent street tales, bouncy club tracks, and proclaimed love for blowjobs that was N.O.R.E., Noreaga's debut solo album, I elected to not pay any further attention to the further output of Victor Santiago. Because of my blasted collector gene, I only checked for his collaborations with production team The Neptunes, but as far as I was concerned, his solo career was completely uncalled for; he really needed his incarcerated partner, Capone, alongside him to help balance out his act.

As a result, I didn't give a damn when his sophomore set, Melvin Flynt - Da Hustler dropped. Hitting store shelves a little over a year after his first effort, Noreaga continued his quest to bring Queens to the forefront of hip hop, neglecting entirely the fact that a lot of great rappers already came from fucking Queens. Regardless, he managed to move over half a million copies, so in some circles Melvin Flynt - Da Hustler would have been considered a success.

The dual album covers were intended to portray both aspects of our host: the businessman and the thug, who are married together out of convenience. In reality, they serve to make the project appear more serious than it actually is: Melvin Flynt - Da Hustler is chock full of the same random bullshit that permeated the N.O.R.E. waters.

The most interesting aspect of this album is that Victor himself has apparently disowned it. It wasn't released without his consent or anything (that would happen later in the man's solo career), but he still wasn't happy with the final product: on his next album, Capone-N-Noreaga's The Reunion, he actually apologizes for the lackluster effort, asking fans for forgiveness because he "didn't wanna make music" as his "pops just died" during the recording process. That is a very valid excuse, I have to say: contractual obligations can be a bitch.

So, when I happened across Melvin Flynt - Da Hustler in my local library, I decided to give it a spin. While I wasn't expecting miracles, I was still secretly hoping that this album would have more in common with Capone-N-Noreaga's The War Report (Noreaga's album debut) than with N.O.R.E.

Was I right?

1. HOSPITAL / FUNERAL INTRO
Underneath this otherwise terrible introductory skit is the current of a man, played by Noreaga, who lost his father prior to the release of this album, an event that will probably overshadow the rest of the tracks on here, regardless of when they were originally recorded.

2. SOMETIMES (FEAT MAZE)
You can hear a tinge of depression within Noreaga's hook for this song, which is dedicated to his late father. EZ Elpee's beat is a tad bit too flashy for the subject matter, but both the host and his guest bring their A-game (or whatever its equivalent is in the weed carrier world) to the track, so at least the sentiment is heartfelt.

3. GANGSTAS WATCH
I'm going to ignore the chorus on here to make my point: SPK's beat is actually really entertaining, and Victor gives listeners a track that sounds as if it would have fit seamlessly onto N.O.R.E., if not The War Report itself. All the hook manages to do is remind listeners that the Noreaga who appears on here is the upgraded, less-hungry version. But otherwise, this wasn't bad.

4. DA HUSTLA (FEAT MAZE & MUSOLINI)
Did Nore just tell everybody to listen to “Sometimes”, from two tracks ago, as an example of his lyrical prowess? How self-aware he must be about his career in the music industry: he knows that his “fans” will only care about his older, more popular material, but he still needs to force his listeners to sit through his newer material in order to justify his continued existence within hip hop. Oh yeah, this song is fucking awful.

5. COCAINE BUSINESS (HYSTERIA) (FEAT KELIS)
After “Superthug” hit the charts in a big way, an old friend of mine tried to bet me that Nore's follow-up would definitely feature even more production work by The Neptunes. As that was a no-brainer, this statement (naturally) led to a shoving match, and I eventually slept with his wife and stole his prize-winning lawn gnome, although I now cannot remember if any of that had to do with the argument or if it was because his wife was hot. Anyway, Pharrell and Chad loan one of their most boring creations to their gracious host, who appears content that their mere presence behind the boards will guarantee radio airplay for this track, completely neglecting the fact that the song is about selling cocaine, a topic which Clear Channel is clearly against, and besides, the Clipse hadn't yet become popular. This song wasn't very memorable anyway, which is a problem of an entirely different color.

6. THE PIGEON (SKIT)
…

7. BLOOD MONEY PT. 3
The original “Bloody Money” was one of my favorite tracks from The War Report; its sequel ended up becoming a throwaway track on the soundtrack to something called Ride co-starring Idalis (from MTV veejay and Six Feet Under fame). Which was weird in and of itself, since the sequel featured Nasir Jones. Anyway, it's rare when an artist provides a direct sequel to a hot commodity in any medium that arouses the same sense of euphoria you felt for its predecessor, and to nobody's surprise (I'm sure), Noreaga and his producer, EZ Elpee, completely miss the mark on here.

8. WE THUGGED OUT (FEAT MISSY ELLIOTT)
With generic, nondescript instrumentals such as these, I'm still wondering to this day how Swizz Beatz became so fucking popular. (I know I've brought him up in the past with a similar complaint, but it's worth repeating: I like a small pocket of the man's work, not unlike the fifth pocket in your jeans that only fits change, and even that's pushing it, but that's where it stops). This entire beat sounds like what you hear coming from the earphones of that kid on the bus or the train who ignores everybody while blasting his shit, who almost certainly has low-grade hearing loss because of how loud his music is playing, and the lyrics on here only serve to make you dumber.

9. GOING LEGIT (FEAT MUSOLINI)
I imagine that knowing you will never be anybody's favorite rapper is an especially freeing mindset to be in, as it alleviates all of the pressure and places blame squarely on the shoulders of the fans, as if to say, “It doesn't matter if the music I make is garbage, you're the stupid motherfucker who wanted me to release an album in the first place.” I feel sorry for everyone that actually spent money on this piffle.

10. REAL OR FAKE N----S (FEAT FINAL CHAPTER)
What about those folks that harbor elements of both the real and the fake? That portion of the population is sorely under-represented in hip hop. Life isn't always black and white, folks: ambiguity is the new red. Final Chapter easily outshines his host over Shuga Bear's bouncy, throbbing beat, but that may only be because Victor sounds like he couldn't give less of a fuck if he actually tried.

11. WHAT THE FUCK IS UP? (FEAT SCARLET O'HARLEM)
Titles such as this one make me proud to call myself a writer. I'm sorry, I meant “embarrassed”. I'm not aware of what exactly a Scarlett O'Harlem is, nor do I care to, but luckily this Trackmasters song itself is so bland, the decision to either put this shit on 'repeat' or to never listen to it ever again is an easy one to make.

12. FIRST DAY HOME
I see what Victor was going for in the chorus, but I can't help but feel that he only used the phrase “hot soup” because that was simply the only rhyme he could come up with. I kept waiting for the conflict to happen (ex-con that comes back home and is torn between leading a positive life (as a rapper, as possible as that can be) and reverting back to his old tricks), but said conflict never comes to light. Life isn't always black and white, folks.

13. DA TUNNEL (SKIT)
…

14. HOLD ME DOWN (FEAT FINAL CHAPTER & TROY OUTLAW)
Noreaga addresses criticism that he isn't even trying with his rhymes (including, I assume, what I wrote about him earlier, which would mean he has tremendous foresight) by saying succinctly: “I'm still hungry, yo / I eat, like, twice a day.” You see, you two? Nothing to worry about here: the man is clearly still not meeting the daily nutritional requirements to lead a healthy life, so your concern is unnecessary. I love how this track lists two guest stars, and neither one gets to spit a verse of their own. Hip hop excess at its least enjoyable.

15. IF YOU WANT IT
You can't listen to this in a club setting, it doesn't play well in your car, it won't help you fall asleep at night, it doesn't get better with age, alcohol, or weed, and if you believe that this song will get that girl you've had your eye on all evening at the bar to drop her panties, you're sadly mistaken. So, what was the purpose of this shit, Nore?

16. OH NO
Prior to this post, this was the only song from Melvin Flynt - Da Hustler that I had already heard. (I had somehow flaked on "Cocaine Business (Hysteria)", which I guess proves that I'm not as big a Neptunes stan as I had originally thought.) Pharrell and Chad supplied one of their bling-ier instrumentals for this first single, effectively cultivating a poor sequel to “Superthug”, although I will cop to the fact that I liked this song back in 1999. The all-star remix, which does not appear on this album, has the distinction of being the first track that united Capone with Noreaga after the former was released from the clink. I always wondered why the label didn't hold the album back until that track could be added and mastered: wouldn't a reunion have been a valid selling point?

17. PLAY THAT SHIT (FEAT JUVENILE, LIL' WAYNE, MAZE, MUSOLINI, & GOLDFINGAZ)
I'd say it's a safe bet that absolutely nobody listened to this song back in 1999 and truly believed that the lead-off artist in this line-up, Lil' Wayne, would become the game's most popular rapper within the span of a decade. While I'm left confused as to what shit I'm supposed to play (“What shit are you talking about?” “THAT shit, motherfucker!”), the song is still a weak excuse for posse cut “entertainment”, and the Mannie Fresh beat is fairly generic. How is it possible that I also feel that both Wayne and Juvenile outrap their host?

18. FLAGRANT COPS
While Nore turns political at the very end of this song, he wastes every preceding moment on the same banal subject matter that we've been bombarded with ever since this nightmare started.

19. ANIMAL THUG GOES HOLLYWOOD (SKIT)
Ending the album with a skit based around a character from N.O.R.E. that I wasn't fond of? Heaven knows I'm miserable now.

THE LAST WORD: When the artist himself dismisses the work, most criticism is diffused almost immediately. It turns out that Noreaga may be pretty objective about his own work: Melvin Flynt - Da Hustler is hippopotamus shit pressed onto a plastic disc. The music is uniformly awful, the guests wear out their welcome rather quickly, and Victor Santiago makes a valid argument that he should he booted off of the hip hop island immediately. Oh, if only that was how the music industry truly worked. This was a waste of my time, but hell, at least I didn't actually buy this shit.

-Max

RELATED POSTS:
Noreaga – N.O.R.E.
Capone-N-Noreaga – The War Report

Noreaga - N.O.R.E. (July 7, 1998)

Victor Santiago, the rapper known as Noreaga (or N.O.R.E., as he now goes by, due to legal issues with a former label), did not intend to begin a solo career only one year after the release of Capone-N-Noreaga's debut, The War Report. The imprisonment of his rhyme partner kind of forced his hand. Capone was actually sent upstate during the recording of The War Report, which is why there are a few tracks on there that don't feature him at all: at some points, it might as well have been a Noreaga solo disc anyway, so when N.O.R.E. was announced by Tommy Boy Records, nobody was surprised: the guy had to eat.

Victor embarked on a mission to keep the memory of Capone-N-Noreaga alive long enough for the duo to reunite and record at least one more album together. (They ended up recording two: I'll get to those when I get to those.) As one of literally eight thousand rappers from Queens, Noreaga had made many connections in the hip hop game, and cashed in multiple favors to get N.O.R.E. made. As a result, N.O.R.E. was a hit, allegedly moving over one million units on the strength of the second single, "Superthug", which was produced by up-and-coming beatmakers The Neptunes.

Guess he kind of lucked into that, huh?

After getting a taste of solo success, Victor, of course, decided he wanted more, and today, even though he still identifies himself as one-half of a rap duo, folks who frequent blogs know him as either "that guy who does those reggaeton albums" or "the guy who was arrested at Fatburger a few months ago", depending on your point of view.

But how goes N.O.R.E.?

1. THE JUMP OFF
Noreaga sounds about as giddy as a crackhead who just sold his Blu-Ray disc player for ten bucks, with another rock to be procured just around the corner. Not surprisingly, this rap album intro is about as worthless as Monopoly money.

2. BANNED FROM TV (FEAT CAM'RON, NATURE, BIG PUNISHER, JADAKISS, & STYLES P)
There's a lot of nostalgic love for this Swizz Beats-produced posse cut, whose participants were selected with the aid of folded-up squares of paper and a comically oversized magician's hat. (White gloves were optional, but recommended.) The reality is that this song is rather fucking stupid. I liked Cameron's verse, and Pun sounded as good as he always did, but as a whole, this “monumental” track is underwhelming. But then again, I didn't like the song that much back in 1998, either, back when all of these rappers were fresh out of the box and "mattered" (except for Nature, who, to my knowledge, nobody ever really gave two shits about).

3. I LOVE MY LIFE (FEAT CARL THOMAS)
This song is altogether pleasant, even though I'm not usually a fan of random collaborations between rappers and R&B singers that probably never shared the same room while recording the track. It appears much too early in N.O.R.E.'s tracklisting, though: you're supposed to reflect on your success after bragging about all the shit you have for at least seven tracks, Victor. Maybe he was just thankful that he wasn't the one in the cell while Capone was building a solo career.

4. N.O.R.E.
The Trackmasters-produced first single, which, had anybody at the label had the foresight as to how game-changing the second single would be, would have probably been quietly deleted from the album. This song has a weird sound and never becomes as catchy as it believes itself to be. Clever as ever, Noreaga changed the meaning of the title's acronym for the radio: it went from “N----z On the Run Eatin'” to “Now we On the Run Eatin'”. It didn't really help.

5. HED INTERLUDE
Groan...

6. HED (FEAT NATURE)
Just the mere fact that I just wrote that a Noreaga song entitled “Hed” (for a song about enjoying blowjobs, that title is even less subtle that N*E*R*D's “Brain”) features another guy (Nature, in a choral cameo that easily could have been deleted) makes me chuckle. The aural mess that make up the “drums” on here are horrible, but the melody that plays in the background is actually quite good. Unlike the rest of this song.

7. IT'S NOT A GAME (FEAT MAZE & MUSOLINI)
Noreaga's middle verse starts off approaching a somewhat serious topic (how to handle an argument between friends without choosing sides), but then, predictably, turns into random Noreaga-type shit. (We get it, man: you love blowjobs. So does every guy in the fucking world, whether they're straight or gay. You're not in the minority: you don't need to shout it from the rooftops. I love blowjobs too, but I don't write about that in every write-up.) The weed carriers are of no consequence, but SPK's piano-driven beat is a good one.

8. FIESTA (FEAT KID CAPRI)
I thought this song was really fucking awful back in the day, and it would always provoke my use of the 'skip' button. However, even though it still sucks today, I'm surprised at how much this one crappy song foreshadows Noreaga's excursions into reggaeton. Huh.

9. 40 ISLAND (FEAT KOOL G RAP & MUSOLINI)
In contrast, I loved this song back in the day, and it remains one of my favorite Noreaga tracks, even though it is, admittedly, a blatant rip-off of an older Kool G Rap song (but at least he included the song's original players, both on the mic and behind the boards, so that was nice of him). Marley Marl's beat is dramatic as fuck, and although G Rap is the only guy that sounds comfortable over it (naturally, as it was his song before), Noreaga and his chief potholder do alright for themselves.

10. THE WAY WE LIVE (FEAT CHICO DEBARGE)
Sure, the fact that Chico DeBarge is making an appearance on a Noreaga album (the man who created the catchphrase “Thugged Out!”) is amusing, but you can't help but feel bad for the guy. It definitely doesn't help that the man sings a chorus that rips off the hook from Atlantic Starr's “Secret Lovers”. Hmm.

11. ANIMAL THUG INTERLUDE
This is actually really fucking racist.

12. THE CHANGE
Beat-wise, Kurt Gowdy's production sounds like a leftover from The War Report. And probably because of that fact, I found myself liking this track, save for the corny-as-hell chorus.

13. SUPERTHUG (FEAT TAMMY LUCAS & PHARRELL WILLIAMS)
Beat-wise, this Neptunes-produced track sounds absolutely nothing like anything Noreaga had done up to this point. This is frequently touted as the track that broke Pharrell and Chad through to the mainstream, and hearing N.O.R.E.'s second single today is still an amusing experience, as it sounds kind of like a primer for their sound: Neptunes Club Banger 101, as it were. Still, it sounds really good, and is preferable to the shit that Pharrell passes off as “Neptunes” production when it's really work that he has done by himself. For my money, Noreaga is in the top five when it comes to the best rappers to ever work with the Neptunes. It shouldn't be a surprise to learn that the Neptunes influence grew exponentially over the rest of Noreaga's catalog.

14. DA STORY (FEAT MAZE)
I've decided that whenever Noreaga channels his past self who appeared on The War Report, his lyrics are far more tolerable. The presence of his bored weed carrier on the hook is a detriment, though.

15. MATHEMATICS (ESTA LOCA)
I'm not sure about my two readers, but if my kid's first words were “What What!”, I would be more than a little bit concerned. If my kid released a song that was as convoluted as this shit, I would assume that they just didn't have any sense.

16. THE ASSIGNMENT (FEAT BUSTA RHYMES, SPLIFF STAR, & MAZE)
If this song were released today, you could tag it as a Kanye West production and nobody would question it (except maybe Kanye himself). (Instead, it was created by Nashiem Myrick, of Puff Daddy's Hitmen (he's the guy who creates the cinematic moody beats) and J. Waxx Garfield, who later worked with Gza/Genius and Cormega.) Sure, this track would have had much more of an impact had Nore and Busta left their respective weed carriers in the car, but the song itself is still pretty decent. Not only does Busta dismiss Noreaga's potholder by failing to mention his name in the hook (although he makes damn sure to name-drop Spliff Star), Nore also pushes poor Maze out of the way to spit a second verse. Hi-larious!

17. BODY IN THE TRUNK (FEAT NAS)
Dame Grease's beat is distracting, which isn't a good thing, considering that Nas and Nore are trying to tell a fucking story. It shouldn't surprise anybody to discover that Nas outshines his host on so many levels that I've lost count, but Noreaga doesn't entirely suck on here, which is a plus.

18. ONE LOVE
Oddly, this is not a song, but an overly long interlude featuring Noreaga on the phone with an incarcerated Capone. The sentiment is sweet, and from a marketing standpoint, I understand the importance of keeping the Capone-N-Noreaga brand alive, but there's no reason this needed to go on forever.

19. OUTRO (FEAT EVE BRENNER)
At least Noreaga thanks me for listening to the entire album. Not many artists go out of their way to do that, and I appreciate it.

FINAL THOUGHTS: N.O.R.E. Is the rare rap album that starts off sounding pretty awful, but picks up steam in a serious way during its second half. (Usually it's the other way around.) Noreaga sounds excited at the prospect of a solo career, even though it was kind of forced upon him,and even though most of his beats sound like shit, his own energy is infectious. While this isn't an entirely good (or even decent) album, Noreaga proves that he may be capable of big things in the future, (Obviously, that didn't pan out in real life, but N.O.R.E. gave us the possibility of potential.)

BUY OR BURN? I wouldn't recommend that you go out of your way to pick this up, since the first half is almost uniformly terrible, but the second half is intriguing enough to warrant a burn. Go in with low expectations and you may find this one entertaining.

BEST TRACKS: “40 Island”; “Superthug”; “The Change”

-Max

RELATED POSTS:
Capone-N-Noreaga – The War Report