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As discussed previously, its always painful for me to watch rappers sell out. Today's case: Jadakiss.
Up to this point, I've had mixed feelings about Jadakiss. On the one hand, he is the best rapper to have come out of Bad Boy since Biggie (which is a bit of a backhanded compliment, I guess). All of his albums, even the first Lox release, get put into rotation at my house periodically. At the same time, though, Jada has developed a level of self confidence that is unwarranted. For the past few years now he has proclaimed himself one of the top three rappers dead or alive. Admittedly the dude can drop some nice punchlines and has a good delivery, but he has yet to put out an album that would even allow him to participate in a debate about the top 10 rappers of all time, let alone the top 3.
I think part of the reason for Jada's confidence in himself is the fact that B.I.G. acted as a mentor for him and used to tell everyone that Jadakiss was going to be the next great rapper. Biggie also said this about Charli Baltimore and the members of Junior M.A.F.I.A., though, so his ear for talent was questionable.
Jada's credibility just took a serious hit with the release of this track that he did with Paris Hilton and the Neptunes. Pharrell's involvement in this doesn't really surprise me. He's had a history of working with blonde pop singers like Britney Spears, Gwen Stefani and Beyonce. But Jada? For a rapper who's known for his gritty street rhymes (with an occasional political track like Why?), this makes no sense. Doing a guest verse for a billionaire heiress' pop album? Status ain't hood on that. It seems to me that if you are a rapper that gets involved in a lot of beefs (G-Unit, Jay-Z, Beanie Sigel) you should try to avoid giving your enemies ammunition like this to use against you.
Either Jada's really hurting for money, which is always a realistic possibility for anyone who has worked under Bad Boy at any point in their career, or he thought this would get him a starring role in a Night In Paris The Sequel. Either way, all street cred has been lost.
As for Paris' part in this, her singing is awful, but would you really expect anything less? Its questionable whether it actually is Paris on the track singing, or if its some sort of vocal stand in, a la Milli Vanilli. Regardless, I can't imagine she spent more than 10 minutes in the studio to lay down the vocals on this one. My biggest concern with this upcoming album from Paris is the fact that she has apparently convinced other rappers to sell themselves out as well, including Three Six Mafia, Dre and Fat Joe (the full version of the track I am putting up today has a verse from Fat Joe on it in addition to the Jada verse). Here it is:
(track after the jump -->)
5/10/2006 10:37:36 AM posted by Fresh