DJ Moondawg and Twista: The Calm Before The Storm

I remember back in the day watching some kid rap his ass off on TV’s “Guinness Book Of World Records” and just being blown away by his style. Dude rhymed quicker than Dred from Fu-Shnickens! That was no easy feat. Dred used to get down. Since then he’s been reppin’ Chi-Town to the fullest, but ain’t really crossover until a young man by the name of Kanye West came by and hit him off with a few key production assists. Since “Slow Jamz” and “Overnight Celebrity,” Twista’s been as hot as Dwayne Wade’s gentiles (according to his ex-wife anyway) and has had a string of commercial hits… well, not really.

See, with a dude like Twista, what you see is what you get. A bunch of songs with tongue twisting rhymes that few people want to recite because they just can’t. Sure “Slow Jamz” and “Overnight Celebrity” were smash hits, but the hottest rapper/producer in the game at the time was on both tracks. Go figure. But that doesn’t disparage the fact that this man’s music is damn good, even if you can’t understand or comprehend what he’s saying.

The self-proclaimed “Black Jason of rap cause I keep coming back” is definitely swinging his liquid sword to cut down tracks with his tongue twisting rhymes on most of this mixtape. I can’t even quote more than two lines at a time from “I Can Make You Say” (produced by the other rapper/singer/producer from Chicago that has a thing for chopped blond bald chicks), “Get Yo Money Right” (hasn’t that title been done to death?), the Shawnna—remember her?—assisted “Shorty Got Work,” or even his “Marco Polo freestyle” on which he dumbed down the flow. I mean damn, son’s an animal on the mic like his name was Karrine Steffans, na’mean. It’s just ridiculous.

But on the R&B joint, “Wetter” he slows it down enough for me to know that this is his “for the ladies” single. He took the rapidness down another notch on the Freeway featured street banger, “Hustle Hard” and I could feel him when he was saying, “Dealing with no hesitation/me and Katrina show you devastation/hotel hell, here’s your reservation/smokin’ that dro/now I’m sitting on the throne/Chicago is my only home…early morn’, I’m up I never sleep late/that’s the reason that I keep cake/you can copp it from me by the bag if you wanna be a cheapskate/but it’s best to catch the wholesale week cake.” By the way, I quoted those lines because those were the only ones I couldn’t really F up.

Truth be told, the mixtape was cool but it wasn’t all that. As nice as he is with the flow and the rhymes, he doesn’t take it anywhere he hasn’t been already. It becomes repetitive and real talk, my ears got tired. Not to mention his subject matter is real limited and son just isn’t keeping things fresh and engaging, na’mean. And the other MCs on this mixtape were about as helpful as Jim Jones was to Cam’ron’s career. Mello The Guddamann? “It’s gettin’ hot like the oven on/spank her ass like a kid that did something wrong”?? This man is expecting to have a career in the rap game with lines like this?? I thought Young City’s metaphors were horrible, but Mello makes that Band reject sound like a f*ckin’ hip-hop wordsmith! Well, I’m ODing, but y’all know what I mean. I’m sure Twista’s always gonna have hot joints here and there, but I don’t know if he’ll ever get back to where he was when Kanye was king.-The Infamous O

Hottest Joint: “Hustle Hard”

Weakest Joint: “Get Yo Money Right”