Coming up in the game with a mentor such as the industry heavy weight Ice Cube, Mack 10 has learned a lot about the rap industry. He has learned enough to establish his own place in the books as a star without riding Cube‘s coat tails. With his 4th installment as a solo artist, Mack 10, like so many others before him now-a-days, brings nothing new to the table.
Again, we here the same old topics, from getting paper, to flossing ice and all that trash. But, I guess that seems like the hit making formula for rappers in 2000. Don’t get me wrong there are a few gems on paper route.
Take for instance Pop X, where Mack enlists the talents of Xzibit and others to rip the Dr. Dre sounding track produced by Rashad Coes. Also, the gangsta anthem Keep it Gangsta is catchy, and the chorus of Gangsta Shit is laid smoothly over oriental plucking.
A rap album wouldn’t be the same without the numerous cameos, as Mack is accompanied on various songs by such heavy weights as Ice Cube, Too $hort, T-boz, Timbaland, Big Gipp from Goodie Mob and others. To wrap up Mack 10, he has all the right ingredients for a typical industry album. The first single Tight to Def is already receiving heavy rotation, but other than a few tight tracks, the amount of album filler is too great.
