Beanie Sigel - The Reason CDs • Vinyl Records • LPs • Music Albums

world of mainstream hip-hop. Unfortunately, on The Reason, Sigel wholeheartedly embraces the trappings of the gangster life. The album is a relentlessly dull breakdown of the G-Code: All the usual fodder is here, from smoking pot ("I Don't Do Much") to baiting women and dealing coke ("Beanie [Mack B****]") to bullying enemies ("Think It's a Game"). Only the album's opener, "Nothing Like It," where Sigel admits he fears the kind of world his son will inherit, has the humanity and the up-from-the-streets passion of his debut. But for the most part, on The Reason, Sigel's more interested in a false gangster's paradise than the truth.

ETHAN BROWN
(RS 873 - July 19, 2001)

Holding down The Roc and repping hard for Philadelphia, Beanie Sigel is known for his rugged but smart crime rhymes and frequent run-ins with the law. The Reason is a solid follow-up to his debut LP, The Truth, as Beans spits felony flows atop thick production from Just Blaze and No I.D. among others. Jay-Z appears on "Think It's A Game" and "Still Got Love For You.