Maybe I'm not the most progressive hip hop lover in the world, but the emcees who really spit their syllables hard and don't just try to cram as many as they can into a stanza (a.k.a. Emcees from the school of Chuck D – not Eminem) are the ones who really hit me. Speed rhyming just feels like welterweight boxing to me – it's all stick, move and dance – but the heavyweights just stand up and methodically command the beat instead of letting the beat command them. Jordan “Juicy J” Houston is definitely the latter kind of emcee and his third album apart from Three 6 Mafia, Stay Trippy, serves an undeniable reminder of what having such a presence really means.
Immediately beginning with “Stop It,” Juicy J lets listeners know that nothing has changed – he's the same player he has always been – and he's happy that way. Right off, J shows up poppin' pills and lookin' at naked ladies, loving the curves on expensive cars and is on the lookout to improve his cash flow position.The world is the same as it ever was for Juicy J as the emcee is comfortable with that here; he presents that to listeners and it's easy for them to enjoy the ride too.
…And the ride only gets easier as the record rolls on. In “So Much Money,” the green flows like water and J boasts that he needs three hands to count it all and the women come free and easy in “Bounce It” (with a little help from Trey Songz and Wale), and the rhymes come easier still when the emcee starts talking about the record industry on “Wax.” In every case, there's no doubt that life is good for this emcee; everything and everyone just bows before him, and everything comes easy (and that includes getting paid the hard way, as illustrated in “Gun Plus A Mask”).
That everything comes so easy on Stay Trippy can make for some really good listening (the beats on “Bandz A Make Her Dance” play like a skeleton key – they fit into any mixtape like they were made to), but it can make for some pretty awful listening sometimes too. When J meets Justin Timberlake in “The Woods,” for example, listeners won't be able to track away from the trainwreck fast enough and “Talkin' 'Bout” sounds like the worst “song three” ever to trip across any stage with a brass rail installed in it. In those cases, J just suffers from too much cliche and too much “help” from lackluster talent (Timberlake and Chris Brown), and then the chore becomes knowing when and how far to track forward in order to find another hit.
“So does that mean Stay Trippy is good or not?” you ask. Well, had he not tried to hit just a few more ears by bringing along a bit of extra star power, there's no doubt that this record would have been better; Juicy J's presence commands everything that happens in his songs, so the other voices which come along for the ride really just hinder him. Because of that, about two-thirds of Stay Trippy is really solid and the rest is disposable; if he leaves the star-power at home next time, he'll be in much better shape.
Artist:
www.staytrippy.thejuicyj.com/
www.facebook.com/juicyjmusic
www.twitter.com/therealjuicyj
Album:
Stay Trippy is out now. Buy it here on Amazon .
