The title doesn’t really make sense. It’s a Wu-Tang Clan and D-Block (Lox) collaboration; Ghostface and Sheek are the prime members for this set; but the Wu Block moniker implies a Clan takeover. The title doesn’t linguistically represent both groups, in other words. It seems to favor Wu-Tang Clan over D-Block because the “Wu” is semantically equivalent to the “D”, not the “Block”. If you take out the “D”, it can be anybody’s “Block”, depending on whose name you put before it, just as it could be anybody’s “Clan”. If it were D Clan, the problem would go the opposite way.

Not that I’d expect either group to consider proper English. This is rap music for uneducated street thugs; the type of “niggas” who rob and shoot people when they aren’t selling drugs to them. The first song, as it goes, is a collection of Crack Spot Stories. It’s also one of the best because it’s one of the few that isn’t dampered by a tawdry hook. Stick-Up Kids, inspired by a tired Fat Boys catchphrase, and Been Robbed, which limits its verse space to just four bars, are particularly annoying. The only commendable chorus, in fact, is the one provided by guest singer Erykah Badu.

Sheek has become the best rapper of The Lox though. “My high school teachers, they said I wouldn’t be nothing; sitting on the bleachers,” he says, “Now I’m sitting in a Phantom, trying to figure-out the features.” Jadakiss and Styles provide guest verses for comparison’s sake. Other Clan members, and Cappadonna, are also featured. I would’ve liked to hear a verse from Rza, but Ghostface holds it down. He and Sheek Louch actually make a dynamic duo. When Method Man finishes their story about a shady “bitch” named Stella, he only distracts from their chemistry.

my rating : 3 of 5

2012