Cassidy - I'm a Hustla: Album Review

Cassidy, I'm a Hustla (J-Records, 2005)
No homo Juelz Santana. As we "speak," Cassidy is probably somewhere having his corn hole ran up in just like his rap forefathers 2Pac and LL Cool J. We can only hope that such a fierce anal pounding will have the same effect on his MC skills as it did for those two, because Lord knows he could sure use something.

THE PROBLEM VS. THE HUSTLA

On this first track, Cassidy the Problem battles Cassidy the Hustla (ie himself), which is kind of amusing just because he goes at himself for making corny R&B records and not selling very many albums but otherwise isn't really worth listening to at all.

I'M A HUSTLA

The lead single. I'm sure you've heard it before. When I was in NY, they would play it on the radio like every 15 minutes. Now I can see why everybody hates Hot 97. You know what we should do is accuse them all of being racist and try to get them to lose all of their McDonalds advertisements for like a week.

ON THE GRIND

Here's as good an example of how the influence of Southern rap is ruining everything (yes, even things that have nothing to do at all with hip-hop). This wouldn't have made for a very good Lil Wayne song (which is what it kind of reminds me of), but at least then I could have easily dismissed it out of hand just because it was, you know, a Lil Wayne song.

CRACK

I only picked this garbage up in the first place just because I thought there might be a few more "I'm a Hustlas" on it, and there aren't. All of this garbage is fucking, um, garbage. My bad about my seeming lack of vocabulary, but I'm finding myself in "recovery mode" up until increasingly later points in the day these days. But yeah, this shit is fucking garbage.

B BOY STANCE

This might be the second best shit on here even if the chorus is pretty fucking grating. Honestly, I was expecting more out of Swizz Beatz on this shit just based on some of the shit he was doing on other people's albums this year, but it sounds like he ended up sticking Cass with a lot of his leftovers.

AM 2 THE PM

Of course the hilarious irony is that now that Cassidy won't be around to promote this shit and since it's likely that the tall Israelis aren't going to sink another dime into this shit, Swizz might have made a smart move by not wasting any more of his heat on this fucking idiot.

CAN'T FADE ME

Since this is the one point at which the album breaks from that silly, bombastic synth-based production (very 1999-sounding throughout) and Nas actually guests on this, you would think that this might actually be one of the album's highlights. But it's not. In fact, it's fucking teh ghey. This beast (what is this even supposed to be?) is fucking teh ghey. Nas' weed carrier Quan, who rhymes and also sings on the chorus must have produced this junk.

KICK IT WITH YOU

Cassidy kicks some nasty loverman raps and a fake 112 sings on the chorus. It's about as teh ghey as you'd expect.

C-BIONICS

WTF is a C-bionics anyway? Was motherfucking Canibus involved with this? I thought he was in the army or some shit.

BELLYBUTTON

Eww! The chorus: "Lift up your shirt, let me see your belly button girl."

GET EM

This is aiight for what it is, or at least it's not as teh ghey as the last few tracks in a row. It's amusing in a way to hear him rhyming about guns and clapping at dudes, nh.

SO LONG

Cassidy is only really good at making two kinds of songs, those being the freestyle bragfest such as "I'm a Hustla" and the nasty loverman rap a la "Hotel." You would think that with the success of "Hotel," he would attempt to recreate that here, and he does, but they all kind of suck.

6 MINUTES OF DEATH

Whoa, the actual Lil Wayne raps on this. It's too bad this beat fucking sucks balls. Lil Wayne can actually be amusing at times. They played like half his last album as well as, get this, the Ying Yang Twinz' "Wait" at this jig wedding I went to last weekend.

THE MESSAGE

LOL at this fucking fuck up trying to make a motherfucking message track. Also, I'm pretty sure this beat uses that same sample as that Wu-Tang song "Hollow Bones" or whatever it's called, which makes Swizzy at least two for two this month at reusing other people's samples.

I'M A HUSTLA REMIX

Actually this might be the best song on here just because it's basically the same thing as "I'm a Hustla" but with even less Cassidy. Mary J Blige's verses are obviously "inspired by" that one song by Wyclef's corny-looking weed carriers. What the fuck was that shit anyway.

COMMENTS: So yeah, this album isn't very good at all. If you aren't already Fucking Sick of it, I'd suggest probably just getting the "I'm a Hustla" 12-inch (no homo) and calling it a day.

BEST TRACKS: The "I'm a Hustla" remix which has less Cassidy than the original.