Known for supplying the streets with hot exclusives, DJ Kay Slay has always been on some New York shit. So when he dropped his major label debut, The Streetsweeper, Vol. 1, in 2003, it was no surprise that the compilation was mostly filled with East Coast–flavored cuts. A year later, he would follow a similar formula on Vol. 2. But with his latest project, The Champions—The North Meets the South, the Drama King enlists the help of Atlanta radio jock/producer Greg Street to add a little Southern flavor to the mix.
Serving as another way to further increase the visibility of Slay’s protégé Papoose, the album features several potent verses from the Brooklyn rhyme spitter. The lead cut, “Can’t Stop the Reign 2006,” finds Pap sharing mic time with Bun B and NBA champ Shaquille O’Neal. Then on the Amadeus-produced “The Hardest Out,” Hell Rell and Remy Ma ride shotgun as Pap drops witty one-liners like, “I’m shore like the water on the reef.”
From there, the tides turn South as Slim Thug, Petey Pablo, Bun B and David Banner get crunk over violent violins on “You Can Get It Too.” The heat gets turned up even more on the explosive “Hood Drug Wars,” where Three 6 Mafia, B.G. and Lil Wyte break down street politics with gritty clarity. The hardest bars, however, come courtesy of Lil Scrappy on “Big Problems,” where he spits, “Don’t make me put a rubber on the tip of the AK/You bubblegum rappers, straight nut slappers/I throw ya ass up like a Magnum wrapper.”
The only potholes in Kay Slay’s lawn are extraneous crew cuts like Juvenile and the
D Boys’ “One for the Trouble” and Twista’s “Knock ’Em Out,” featuring the Speedknot Mobstaz, who spit much ado about nothing. Despite Street playing a background role to Slay’s obnoxious ad-libs, the turntable technicians manage to compile a diverse collage of tracks without having to slap your favorite DJ. —OMAR MAZARIEGO
