the high life, the gangsta and the playa. Shyne even invokes the name of Biggie's never-realized supergroup on "Commission."
Shyne aspires to enter himself in the "who's the best MC" debate alongside Biggie, Jay-Z and Nas, but he's eschewed that Holy Trinity's more humane virtues: He lacks Big's playful irony, Jigga's witty sarcasm and Nas' meaning-of-life introspection. This puts him more in league with B-team players such as Lil' Cease, Memphis Bleek and Nature.
Predictably, Shyne is obsessed with the trappings of mo' money -- soft furs, big guns, fast cars, expensive drugs -- and with letting you know that he's bigger than hip-hop. "Criminal mind-state/I really sell weight/I just happen to rhyme great," he raps over the high-speed bump of "Let Me See Your Hands." Nothing new, but he often spins cliches with poetic verve. On "The Life," he offers a rise-and-fall tale of drug life that's pure Scorsese. Backed by flutes and horns straight from a Tolkien novel, he narrates: "Started this shit called The Council/And we all made a pledge not to fuck each other's bitches/Or touch each other's riches/On top or broke/Never break this oath."
Backed by dramatic yet minimalist tracks, this album could be the pinnacle of Y2K thug pathology. It's bursting with ambition, ripe with apathy, pregnant with contradiction and gilded in sacrilege. The album begins with an open letter to America, asking for reparations for slavery, educational facilities and job opportunities, but Shyne's deepest political statement after that is: "Fuck y'all niggas/Hope you die a slow death/As I coke test and C. Delores Tucker protest." Shyne is like a five-car pileup of luxury autos: a mix of beauty and destruction that demands your attention with its violence and waste. (RS 851)
KRIS EX
