producers: dj paul, juicy 'j'

guests: dj paul, hypnotize camp posse, crunchy black, three 6 mafia, juicy 'j', project pat.

The Three 6 Mafia have been repping the South some time before it blew up all over the place. And proving that they are not to be counted out, the "Intro" on this Gangsta Boo album, the sole female member of the click, is being utilized to tell us what we can expect from these people in the future, giving a shout to upcoming releases. The album then quickly changes into the first track, and "Hard Not 2 Kill" is showing us, that what we get here is straight up Hypnotize: the beats still got that demonic feel to 'em, the flows are slow, and the lyrics are unapologetic, with the DJ Paul provided chorus going "it's hard not to kill niggas / it's like an everyday job not to kill niggas / niggas you better know that". Tracks like "They Don't Love Me" and "Mask 2 My Face" have a strange appeal, with the latter it can be explained due to the haunted keyboard clouds though. The thing that pushes "Love Don't Live (U Abandoned Me)" is the usage of the Rose Royce classic, that has Boo find her emotional side, giving us: "it's whatever when it comes down to you / well it was, until you made it clear that I ain't for you / you just abandoned me, you left me strandedly / heart broke, constantly / hearing love songs on the radio, that remind me of you / they say a gangsta ain't 'posed to cry / but I'm shedding tears and I'm a gangsta until I die".

This side is then dropped quicker than you can say 'wodie', as the content of "Can I Get Paid (Get Your Broke Ass Out) - Da Strippers Anthem", is pretty self explanatory. The whole Hypnotize Camp Posse shows up on "M-Town Representatives", giving a shout out to their home turf. The guests are kept coming with Crunchy Black appearing on "I Thought U Knew", that is featuring another pretty cool beat, that just like all the others was produced by DJ Paul and Juicy 'J'. Not just 'pretty cool'. An actually dope one is the beat on "Same Block", while Boo is spitting her threatening verses, that can be boiled down to one of her lines: "you bitches be talking that shit, do you think that you can handle me?". Teaming up with the rest of the Three 6 Mafia, "Don't Stand So Close 2001" is doing little more than paving the way for "Wut U Niggas Want", that is giving us a frustrated Boo, due to all those scrubs trying to get to her, while she's "just a lovely lady independent trying to make it rich".

Another dope beat appears on "Good & Hi", that features Juicy 'J' and has Boo reclaim her stance with lines like "I ain't tryin' to brag or say I'm all that, when I'm not / but I'm fucking bad, I'm knocking plenty bitches out the spot". "Victim Of Yo' Own Shit" is once more benefiting from a rather cool beat, before the almost funny "I Faked It Last Night" appears next. This even progresses musically, before on the chorus Boo goes "why you lying to you boys telling them you slanging pipe / you didn't even make me cum I faked it last night". DJ Paul answers "talking all that bull 'bout you didn't cum and shit / bitch I don't give a fuck I got my nut ya boy did" and he ends his verse with "I heard you was a set up / that's why I came so quick cause I was trying to get the fuck up / not in ya face not in way up outta ya place / and never heard from again like Mase ".

The vibe changes then into something rather hectic, with Boo teaming up with Project Pat on "Chop Shop", before the album ends with "Your Girl's Man" and finally the "Outro". And so we can wrap up this review, but not before commenting on the rating: The scale can't take into consideration the different styles you find in hip hop. And this here is obviously lyrically weak, with the flow being basic, the vocabulary unimpressive and the content pretty weak. The beats on the other hand are somewhat complex compositions, while keyboard based, they still feature a certain strange appeal, that works even outside the setting it was initially meant for. And all of these reasons explain the rating this album gets. At the same time however, if you consider what kind of style this album represents, and that a lot of things the scale demands, never even were intended to be accomplished by the artists, then the rating is too low. But if you take this for what it is: a gangster rap album, and you compare it to what gangster rap album were, are and could be, it's not crap. It's still not a very good album in its own genre, but it's a solid album, and certainly better than the rating reflects.

What then maybe gives us reason enough to think about the necessity and sense the whole rating thing makes, especially as we can't feature a disclaimer with every album. But as we all know, people love ratings, demand it even to some extend. And so we have to realize that at times it will fail, beyond the fallibility every reviewer has, in the way that he will not give the record the same rating you think it deserves. But what the heck, Gangsta Boo doesn't care, and we shall for the moment no longer too.