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Tony Yayo Album Review: THOUGHTS OF A PREDICATE FELON

“It’s the rap tycoon, Tony, y’all all know me, seen me on MTV, I’m a parolee, I was out for 12 hours and went right back in…doing time in the pen..” - Tony Yayo, “Drama Setter”.

Finally the guy who “puts the - G - in G-Unit” has released his long anticipated national album. It was a long arduous journey for this self proclaimed “drug dealer’s dream” as he was incarcerated right at the start of 50 Cent’s ascension to the top of the rap game. See one night in 2002 Yayo and 50 were victims of an undercover sting as suddenly their bullet proof car got surrounded by undercover police who then demanded that 50 roll down the windows of the car - but the cops didn’t understand that bullet proof windows DO NOT ROLL DOWN which explained why 50 and Yayo broke out laughing during the whole fiasco. So they both went to jail that night but while 50 came out the next day Yayo would have to stay for 2 years as he already was basically a fugitive of justice at that point. Hence the “FREE YAYO” campaign was born and the whole G-Unit (including Eminem) spread the movement at every show and appearance. Suddenly Tony Yayo was the biggest name rapper you had never seen or really heard rapping. But while Tony may have been behind bars unable to contribute to the latest G-Unit album, 50 Cent made sure Yayo got paid for all the touring G-Unit did and was also broken off on profits from the G-Unit album and other projects equally. Hence once Yayo got out of Riker’s Island in 2004 he was ALREADY A MILLIONAIRE. Pretty good start to a prison release right? Wrong. 12 hours later he was sent right back to jail for having a fraudulent passport found on his person at yet another vehicular detainment by NY’s finest. It would be another 4 months for Yayo on the inside of a federal lock-up and finally in May 2004 he was out for good (we hope) and finally able to record tracks and more importantly finally enjoy the huge success his homies 50, Lloyd Banks, and Young Buck were enjoying. Now it was his turn to hit the studio and make some money tracks. In fact upon his 2nd release from jail he was picked up and hauled off immediately to the studio to work on THOUGHTS OF A PREDICATE FELON which represents his current release. Half the album was written and jail and half out of jail and basically Yayo tries to put in words his mind state as he was going in and out of jail. Now let’s see if he was successful in painting this picture…

Well upon several listens of the album one thing is apparent. It’s basically the prototypical modern rap album. Which is not really a good thing as that means you only got a few bangers, a few good yet not exceptional cuts, a few filler cuts and then your standard R&B tracks that cater to album buying women and lame a&& radio stations. At least Yayo smartly made “So Seductive” his first single because not only is the track a banger cut that demands heavy club rotation but it features a nice cameo by 50 Cent who takes the song to smash hit levels. Mad energy is also shown after the album “prison” intro on “Homicide” that gets the album off to a nice start. However besides track 5 which is “So Seductive” we have to skip all the way to Track 8 to find that next stand out cut called “We Don’t Give A F***” where once again 50 takes the song to new heights with surprisingly poignant, rapid-fire lyrics like - “Ni&&a why you run and hide?, everything alive dies, why ask why?, why cry?, man up CHUMP!, worrying is for the weak…hold your own or be dead in the street..”. People sleep on 50’s lyrics. After track 8 we wade through some muck to get to the impressive “I’m So High” track and then we must skip way down to “I Know You Don’t Love Me” - which is track 15 - to find the final banger which features 50 singing the chorus and the rest of G-Unit screwing the track.

Once you get past the bangers this album does have some decent tracks that won’t make you that excited but also aren’t bad enough to make you hit the “next’ button. “Love My Style” is the best out of this bunch followed by “Live By the Gun”, “G-S”, and “Eastside Westside”. “Drama Setter” produced by Eminem is tight lyrically but almost falls into the “filler” category because Eminem gives Yayo basically the same sounding track he gives everyone else. I mean C’mon Em…stick to rapping. He produced like 2 or 3 good songs and thinks he’s Kanye West now or something.

Now if Yayo had just given us these 10 aforementioned tracks this album would have been darn near “must-have” material. But of course he had to give us an overdose of the R&B not once, not twice, but THREE freakin times with the songs “Pimpin”, “Curious”, and “Project Princess”. Jesus Christ! I want to vomit! Then he also has three songs that are pretty much filler songs because you hear them once and you really don’t want to hear them again. Hence almost half the album is forgettable as a result. Now I know the young kids out there only need 3 or 4 great songs and they call the album a great album. But not me. I come from the days where artists actually took their craft seriously and tried to make every track on the album banging and maybe only ONE track was commercial - usually because the record company forced them to put it on the album. So for me this album is OK due to a collection of 10 quality songs to choose from but you’ll have to skip over too many tracks to get to the good ones. This album will be found in a time capsule marked in a canister called “Sample of average rap in the 21rst century” - Meaning it just makes the cut as far as being retail worthy but you can probably do without it.

Benz0
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