By James Choy
Not many rap artists in the music industry can be 22 years old
and already have five albums under their belt, but for Bow Wow,
better known has Shad “Lamborghini” Moss, surviving in the business
after his latest album, he shows very little of how much he’s grown
up.
Much of the production of “New Jack City II” was arranged by
mentor and respected producer Jermaine Dupri, who in the past has
worked with other big names like Mariah Carey, TLC and Usher.
With the addition of featured artists such as T-Pain, T.I.,
Nelly and Swizz Beats, the album also adds some R&B flavor with
collaborations from Trey Songz, Dondria and Johnta Austin, which at
best is nothing to the likes of a Chrisette Michelle or Ne-Yo.
The beats and the melody however are fairly respectable. Songs
like “Rock the Mic” consist of a heavy 808 bassline blended with a
melancholy violin melody and percussion that makes it a tolerable
head-nodder, while “Sunshine” consists of a low heavy bass guitar
rhythm with a drum beat that is accompanied with a slow groovy
cadence.
“What They Call Me” and “She’s My” both feature robotic-voiced
melodies (originated by Roger Troutman and Teddy Riley) from rap
producer T-Pain, who is credited in doing many “Dirty-South”
music.
The influence extracts into both of the songs and provides a
slow-tempoed and ineffective direction to Bow Wow’s style from his
early albums.
Two of the tracks re-sample previous R&B hits like “She’s
My”, which features an excerpt from Bobby Brown’s “Roni” on the
chorus utilizing a slow robotically tune while TLC’s “Baby, Baby,
Baby” is used on “You Can Get it All” which features singer Johnta
Austin.
Unfortunately, the song fails to match the greatness of the
original piece and unsuccessfully delivers that emotional sentiment
with sub par lyrics and a worthy performance in singing.
Most of the content is seemingly directed for radio with its
obvious commercial tunes. “Shake It” and “What They Call Me” are
seemingly usable for club music.
Lyrically, the album weakens the quality on every single
song.
The topics are based on the typical women, materialism, clubbin’
and egotism, very much like other commercial artists.
The album also for the first time has a parental advisory
sticker embedded on the cover, which is to indicate Bow Wow’s
metamorphosis from a young-kid entertainer to a mature adult
rapper”who now cusses in his tracks.
What makes this album ineffective and inferior is that there’s
no innovative, thought-provoking and creative content to pay
attention to but to just fast-forward through.
These recurring topics are one of the reasons why many listeners
like myself are turned away by the genre.
While Bow Wow has all the makings to be a much better rapper, by
providing some imagery and emotion and wordplay, his adult-matured,
baritone voice is instead a monotonous, unoriginal presentation of
boredom.
NJCII falls into the realm of the uninteresting style the South
produces (with the exception of acts like Outkast or
Cunninglynguists) and provides no real reason to spend that
hard-earned money for a mediocre album.
Reach James Choy at lifestyle@thepolypost.com
Bow Wow’s ‘New Jack City II’ fails to impress
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