:: Elektra
Ladies and gentlemen, the Flavor Flav of the new millenium.. the O.. D.. B!!!!!
When an album starts out with an introduction by Chris Rock, you know it's either going to be really good or really fucked up. Nigga Please is both. This is Mr. Jones at his finest - drunk, high, crazy, and sometimes dead on point. If he's this good when he's blown out of his mind it makes you wonder how lethal he'd be as an MC if he stayed SOBER.
Even though the style is more or less the same, the topic and the presentation of the material vary widely. On "Good Morning Heartache" he and Lil' Mo present a sung duet which could actually be called heartfelt and touching.. but "I Want Pussy" flips the script so outrageously on the same tip you'd hardly recognize him as the same person. That's the Houdini trick though - they're both degrees of the same man. You're just seeing him from different angles.
"Rollin' Wit You" turns the kaleidoscope another notch to the lyricist ODB. If you're not paying attention you might miss how sharp his barbs are on this. "If I got a problem, a problem got a problem til it's gone, I'm the only Unique Ason." Think about it for a minute. Then "You Don't Want It" could fool you because instead of trying to flow he babbles and talks shit a lot - but you'll find yourself nodding your head and singing "You don't wan... you don't wan fuuuuuuk with meeeeeeee" right along with him.
Perhaps his finest outing on ANY album, Wu-Crew or solo, is the high octane "All In Together Now" - which puts the Method Man and Fred Durst version from Limp Bizkit to shame. "Somebody gettin hot in here.. everybody gettin hot in here.. red people gettin hot in here.. yellow people gettin hot in here.. blue people gettin hot in here.. aliens gettin hot in here.." WHAT??? Don't even try to understand. Just do the knowledge when he kicks the Wu mathematics like RZA: "See me in The Source - yo I take the eighty-five percent brain, cause black makes what makes rain.." Can you dig it?
Nigga Please Schizophrenia at it's finest. Each song reveals another Ol' Dirty Bastard: from Big Baby Jesus, to Osirus, to Unique Ason, and so on, and so on. He puts niggaz on a "rap drought" throughout simply because they can't keep up with the level of his madness. Maybe this wouldn't work if he didn't have the Wu-Tang family producing his beats. Maybe. But he'd still be the most manic presence in the hip-hop scene today. What would we do without a guy who brags about eating pussy, sniffing coke, and talking about how "Wu-Tang is for the children?" I don't know but I can scarcely imagine a world without his manic personality. God bless the Bastard.
Music Vibes: 10 of 10 Lyric Vibes: 7 of 10 TOTAL Vibes: 8.5 of 10
Originally posted: October 5, 1999
source: www.OHHLA.com