With Bizzy working out his own personal demons, the other members are forging ahead without him and the album greatly sufferes because of it. s biggest fault is its complete unBoneness. It s completely devoid of that darkness that permeated their earlier work.
Treated like royalty, Bone now get the superstar beats and the superstar guests. Of those guests, Mariah Carey I can understand (even if it is just another attempt at rekindling past collaboration-glory) But Bow Wow? Akon?
Bone, particularly Bizzy, could have sung the hook to I Tried themselves, instead they enlist the ubiquitous hitman to sing it. And sing it he does: over two minutes of the 4:50 long song are given up to Akon s chorus (which is sung four times). Elsewhere, The Game s appearance for a guest verse on Streets is strange because, if his previous lyrical name-dropping is any indicator of his hip-hop love, he doesn t even know the Midwest exists.
Which is what makes this sudden Bone love so off-putting it s like the group is a nostalgic novelty act, and everybody wants to name-drop em. It s like Layzie Bone has said (repeatedly), everybody loves Bone, but Bone doesn t sell anymore. Strength and Loyalty is to change that.
Gimme DJ Uneek, the producer behind all of and The Art of War , over will.i.am and Jermaine Dupri any day.
Uneek was the only producer who ever really understood Bone s sound and his moody, twinkling backbeats are missed, replaced by Jermaine Dupri s shining radio-ready exuberance and Akon s string-pulling piano ballads. Gun Blast , produced by Ty Fyffe, cops the same sampling beat that Cam ron used for You Gotta Love It (which is just lazy considering Fyffe has worked with Cam). Flowmotion is little more than an updated version of an extremely early Bone track (back when they were known as B.
O.N.E.
Enterprise) of the same name not surprisingly it s the albums fastest, most melodic and best track. The one leftover from Layzie Bone s failed Mo Thug project, Felecia, makes an appearance on the glimmering, much too positive So Good, So Right. And then, at the very end, is yet another Akon produced, Akon featuring track.
I m just imagining the three remaining Bone members, beleaguered and desperate, ready to get back on the charts, being pushed around by producers and record execs to make something for the radio, and in the end, bowing to them all. The Bone I knew, or the Bone I like to think I knew, would have used this nothing-left-to-lose opportunity to create something unlike anything else. I don t wanna be just another their-earlier-shit-was-better kinda guy, but, well their earlier shit was better.
With Bizzy working out his own personal demons, the other members are forging ahead without him and the album greatly sufferes because of it.
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