It is common to hear people complain about Hip Hop’s lack of respect for it’s legends. While the Rolling Stones and the like have massive tours into their twilight, rappers from the ’80s and early ’90s are largely ignored by today’s audience. It has hard to feel pity for Grand Puba [click to read], who is releasing his fourth album on Babygrande, his first since his ’01 release on Koch [click to read]. Even at his peak, Puba was squandering the opportunities his massive talents provided him. After splitting from Brand Nubian [click to read] after their classic debut, Puba released his pristine solo debut Reel To Reel and proved himself to be one the finest emcees on the planet. It was three years until his next album, the unfocused 2000, and his spot on the food chain was lost to New York’s new crop of talent.
Puba wastes no time getting into the heavy stuff as the album starts with “I See Dead People” [click to listen], a tribute to all those who lost their lives to slavery and racism. As he always used to, Puba continues to balance his 5% sensibilities with his skirt chasing raps. The difference here is that the production doesn’t stack up to the content. Unfortunately the ho-hum “Hunny” doesn’t do anything to aid the LP’s sluggish start.
“How Long?” is one of RetroActive‘s strongest cuts, despite the Auto-Tune chorus, which is more heartbreak than Kanye‘s album [click to read]. Use of bad trends aside, Puba shows he can still bring the real; “Now we do it to our own kind / Stuck in the devil’s state of mind / Running in circles like the blind leading the blind / Third eye is your mind where the thoughts are produced / Manifest greatness when you break the chains loose.“
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The middle of the album sees Puba Maxwell teaming up with some fellow legends to really good results. The best of the bunch, “Same Old Drama” featuring Large Professor [click to read], is criminally cut short at a minute thirty. “Good To Go” with Q-Tip [click to read] isn’t great, certainly not as good as it could have been, but GP rips his verse. “This Joint Right Here” with the party-starting Kid Capri [click to read] is a perfect example of Gang Starr‘s [click to read] updating formulas. The early ’90s glory is even better when Lord Jamar [click to read] and Sadat X show up for a Brand Nubian remix of the aforementioned.
“Reality Check” is a nice spoken word piece featuring Sarah Martinez, or should I say, by Sarah Martinez. Puba doesn’t even appear on the three minute plus track, that flies on an intro, outro or short interlude, but a full song in the middle of your own album? Yet a great song with Largo Pro gets under two minutes? It kind of feels like the label might have stole the unfinished album from Puba‘s laptop. That, or Puba was half asleep when he made joints like “It Is What It Is” and “Get That Money.”
There was a time that Grand Puba would have taught Soulja Boy and these other rappers a thing or two about swagger (pardon the expression). Back when he was “runnin’ ’round town givin’ all the girls Puba snacks,” but that was 19 years ago. After over 20 years in the game, Puba has understandably lost a step. He could still rap circles around a lot of today’s rappers but from the sounds of RetroActive he’d be doing it with little inspiration and mediocre production.
