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Shyne Shyne Bad Boy, 2000
Buy it online
Tracks 1: Dear
America
Reviewed by Lincoln Cho
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When Notorious B.I.G. was brutally killed in 1996 he was at work on his second album. Not one to let death get in the way of a release, Rap music impresario Sean "Puffy" Combs released the album three weeks after Biggie's murder as Life After Death. While the name of the album seems fairly exploitive, it was in line with the now prophetic Ready to Die which was the name of Notorious B.I.G's debut album. Life After Death was huge and the consensus was that is was worthy of the talented but late rapper. In 1999, Combs cobbled together an album that largely consisted of the dead artist's outtakes and demos. He called it Born Again and released it to a by-now-suspicious public. After all, some time had passed, everyone knew that any material Biggie might have wanted to release had already seen the light of day on Life After Death. That is to say that, while Life After Death could be viewed as a tribute in certain lights, by the time of the release of Born Again it was starting to look like exploitation. Hell: it had been three years. Let's face it: the corpse was starting to stink. It must have been fairly obvious even to a notorious egoist like Combs that he couldn't revisit that particular well again. So what's a producer to do? Enter Shyne, a mildly talented Biggie-sound-alike for Combs to mold. And mold him he has. In a wild coincidence -- or maybe not -- Shyne is the rapper who was arrested around the same incident that saw Combs, girlfriend Jennifer Lopez and a bodyguard taken into custody late on December 27, 1999. Shyne, whose real name is Jamal Barrow, was subsequently charged with attempted murder in the second degree, two counts of assault in the first degree, two counts of attempted assault in the first degree, reckless endangerment in the first degree, criminal use of a firearm in the first degree and criminal possession of a weapon in the second and third degrees. (Seriously though: you'd think that a lot of this stuff wouldn't require degrees: it either is or it ain't.) While none of this has very much to do with Shyne's self-titled debut album, one could argue it has everything to do with it. Shyne embodies all of the things that rap music has evolved into under Puff Daddy's care. Angry, heavily produced (one could say overproduced if one cared to), Shyne seldom lives up to the promise of "Bad Boyz," track four on Shyne and released as a single earlier this year. With a few notable exceptions, Shyne is full of angry and forgettable rhymes and while Shyne's voice can't help but put you in mind of the truly talented Biggie Smalls, Shyne never comes close to Biggie's latent-but-always-evident humor or depth. The album opens with a lament that Shyne would no doubt like to become an anthem. It won't. "Dear America," is billed here as an "intro," and I suppose it's meant to sound somewhat heroic, but it feels more like an (only slightly) extended whine. Dear America / I'm only what you made me. Musically "Bonnie & Shyne" contains some really nice elements, including additional vocal work by Barrington Levy who also provides the winning backtrack elements featured on "Bad Boyz." Don't expect "Bonnie & Shyne" to get a lot of popular airplay, however. There's a lot of rapping about "taking it from the back like a bad girl is supposed to," and "you can look at the city while I'm driving your kitty." "Bonnie & Shyne" is, for Shyne, what passes for a love song. However, most of Shyne is a little more to the point: gangsta to the point of parody of the genre. For instance, a couple of lines from "It's OK:" What's my motherfucking name? / Put a bullet in your brain. Which, at this stage in the game, seems fairly yawn producing. Or, perhaps more to the point, it seems as though Shyne is determined to produce gangsta when the best artists in the genre have long since gone on to different projects -- if not different planes -- and the bullets have all been released in more eloquent ways, thank you. Don't get me wrong: Shyne
-- the artist, not the album -- has possibilities. His voice
is strong and, when he doesn't sound like he's trying to
beat his anger into a frenzy, Shyne really begins to
work. It's likely that this artist will have to rid himself
of some shadows before his music truly becomes worthy of
note. The shadows, for instance, of Puff Daddy and the dead
man that, it seems, he would have Shyne would emulate.
| October 2000 |
Shyne -- the artist, not the album -- has possibilities. His voice is strong and, when he doesn't sound like he's trying to beat his anger into a frenzy, Shyne really begins to work. It's likely that this artist will have to rid himself of some shadows before his music truly becomes worthy of note. |
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