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Are kids inherently incompetent rappers? I wasn't moved an inch after Warren G rescued Kriss Kross from the jaws of commercial rap and relocated them to West Coast G-Funk territory. Now it's the East Coast's turn to lay claim to owning the baddest pubescent rapper in show business: Shyheim. And he has just about everyone on this album: Smoothe Da Hustler, Rubbabandz, Dzalias Christ, Raekwon, etc. Even the RZA, the man behind the Wu-Tang Clan, guest-produces a track, "Young Godz." *1/2 Shyheim
THE LOST GENERATION
(Noo Trybe)
As for Shyheim's own lyric style, there isn't one. All that's required is a little memorization; RNS, his executive producer, takes care of the rest with a bunch of songs that sound not unlike Wu-Tang "lite." Shyheim is neither the prodigy so many claimed him to be nor a failure: he's a recruit -- a young person called upon to fight for the East Coast vs. West Coast cause. Left exposed are the drastic differences between hip-hop as a culture and its shallow media-propelled counterpart.
-- Justin Farrar
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