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Hustler’s P.O.M.E.

Jim Jones

HipHopIsDead by ONI, 6/15/07

Jim Jones lied to me. Jim Jones lied to the rest of America. Hustler’s P.O.M.E. (Product of My Environment) was supposed to be an album. In actuality, it’s nothing more than your typical mixtape that you cop for free on the internet, bump for a few days, and then promptly delete from your computer and memory.

“What makes this more of a mixtape than an album?” you might ask. Well for one thing, the ubiquitous and excessive adlibs makes it sounds more like what a mixtape DJ would scream over tracks than legitimate songs. I originally thought the version I bought was the bootleg and that the adlibs were there so that I would buy the real thing. That strategy would probably work because the adlibs are incredibly annoying. Unfortunately, this isn’t the bootleg, so that plan goes down the drain. Maybe Jones uses them along with the sound alterations of his voice as a decoy to distract us from his terrible rapping. Every time I hear “ballin’!!!!” I have a sudden impulse to scream “shut the fuck up!”

But maybe you do have a preference for the adlibs and if so, nothing is wrong with that at all. The problem is the beats are still simply mundane and uninspiring. For example, I noticed that they used the same sample (Yvonne Fair - “Let Your Hair Down”) on “Bright Lights, Big City” as the song “Where I’m From” which is on Jay-Z’s second LP In My Lifetime. And I don’t usually mind when people borrow stuff from others but this time I do because the former is so poor compared with the latter. Also, I’ve always been a fan of sped up samples, but “Don’t Push Me Away” would drive dogs insane and would push them far, far away.

Now let’s discuss content. Well the content is not even worth talking about, because there is none but I will make an attempt anyway. Drugs, Guns, Money. OK, done.

There is one quotable that I think deserves mention from the track “Emotionless” (a song title that would certainly better fit as the album title.) “You heard of us, the murderous, the most shady/ Been on the low lately, the feds hate me.” Oh wait… Biggie already said that in “Victory”. Never mind. It’s sad that there is not even one punch line worthy of typing. Even fellow Dipset members like Juelz or Cam’Ron) who sometimes lack in the content department, usually makes up for it with a few clever punch lines and good choruses on each song. More will be added explaining why Jones has nothing worthy of typing Talk about Max B, too. Additionally, Jones has trouble with choruses. “I don’t think that you want it with these niggas/ Cuz these niggas won’t hesitate to squeeze”, he chants on “Bright Lights, Big City”. Maybe he needs a ghost writer. Maybe he needs a new one if he has one already. Lil’ Wayne has poor lyrics on the album, too, but the best flow in his cameo on “Weatherman”. I am going to add more to explain why Lil’ Wayne had best performance on the album.

There are two or three reasonably catchy tracks on the album (“We Fly High” isn’t one of them). “Reppin’ Time” is good minus the vocals and adlibs. I can actually nod my head slightly to “So Harlem”. Two singles can only do so much to help an album that lacks taste from intro to end. It has no direction or story, just one constant theme: That Jim Jones is a hustla, a thug like Pac was. The social impact that the culmination of albums like this have on America’s youth is worse than you would predict as it does more to perpetuate stereotypes and myths about this culture than it does to entertain. I can’t imagine even hardcore Dipset fans listening through the entirety of the album without skipping a majority of the tracks.

Wow, after actually listening to this album and with the thought in mind that people actually go to the music store with the intention of buying this album it really makes me think… Maybe hip hop is truly dead after all. Like I said before, this is a solid mixtape but a horrible album. As much as I would love to talk more about this mixtape, I can’t. I’ll be too busy talking to my editor and begging him to let me choose the album I want to talk about for next time.