Thirty Three Jones | Desktop Site
With the recent premiere of Puffy's Making The Band 4, it was not surprising to see some of the members of "Da Band" start to reappear in the media. First Chopper, looking like an older version of Namond from The Wire, came out with a diss video aimed at Diddy. Now Philly rapper E. Ness, on a more positive note, has just released a new mixtape with DJ Benja Styles, The Pursuit of Happi-Ness.
While there's no denying that Ness was the most talented rapper on Making The Band 2, there wasn't a whole lot of competition. Admittedly, Ness does have a nice flow with some solid punchlines to go with it. Is he good enough to carry an album on his own, though? I can't say that The Pursuit of Happi-Ness answers that question - I'm leaning towards "no," but the official album's not due until 2008, so I'll hold off on a final judgment until then. Benja Styles offers up a solid selection of beats on this tape, however, and Ness manages to live up to his reputation as the best lyricist currently on Bad Boy.
The biggest problem I have with Ness is his unrelenting street talk, which makes him sound as if he's auditioning to be Bad Boy's version of Beanie Sigel. I watched this dude star in two seasons of an MTV "reality" tv show, running errands for Puffy and catching the occasional beatdown from his fellow band members. So it's a bit hard for me to believe Ness when he raps (in the present tense) about cooking up crack and catching bodies on the street corner. I mean, damn, I know Puffy is stingy with the money, but Ness' crack dealer fantasies strain the limits of my credulity.
Two tracks from the mixtape:
E. Ness and Young Hot - Drummer's Beat Freestyle
E. Ness - Pull Up To The Bumper
Click here to download the full mixtape (zShare link)
For more from Benja Styles, check out his website.
For more from Elliot Ness, stop by his website.
6/28/2007 8:28:29 PM posted by Fresh