Kiss Tha Game Goodbye

08/28/2001 9:32 PM, Yahoo! Music
Dan Leroy

After two albums with the Lox, guest shots out the wazoo and patronage from heavy hitters like P. Diddy and DMX, Jadakiss gets to walk his talk about being hip-hop's numero uno man on the mic. His solo debut can't nail down that claim--he ain't in the class of old-schoolers like Rakim yet, and could still learn a thing or three from Tupac and others--but among the current crop of MCs, the New Yorker's still pretty close to the top.

Check "Knock Yourself Out," where Kiss starts his yarn, "She said she was a model for a year and a half/and if she took her pins out, her hair would drop down to her calf," before the story turns ugly. And then there's "Feel Me," billed as a skit but actually a prime slice of autobiography. The music's more hit-and-miss--"Put Ya Hands Up" sounds more like second-rate Neptunes than Swizz Beatz, and is more notable for its alleged disses of Jay-Z, while Kiss sounds ill at ease instead of just ill on the nods to Cali and the South. But it's not hard to figure why Ras Kass wanted the beat from the Alchemist-produced "We Gon' Make It," while Swizz is in great form on the slinky "Jada's Got A Gun" and Timbaland's trademark electrofunk fits Kiss nicely on "Nasty Girl." The hype about this one may have led to unrealistic expectations, but it's mostly solid, occasionally brilliant and certainly worth a listen.