AZ - Undeniable: Album Review
AZ, Undeniable (Koch Graveyard, 2008)
AZ kinda looks like a black, degenerate Mr. Rogers on the cover of this, his umpteenth album and his third or so since he realized the whole major label thing just wasn't gonna happen for him anymore.
His MySpace is actually kinda slick. I'm always surprised when rappers on independent labels aren't promoted particularly worse than their major label counterparts.
THE GAME DON'T STOP
You'd hardly know Lil' Fame from MOP produced this. Don't let me find out he's taken up an interest in "smooth jazz."
SUPERSTAR
This one, with its '80s R&B feel and its... shall we say, hip-hop-esque production values, actually calls to mind something MF Doom might have thrown together circa Operation: Doomsday - only not as good.
LIFE ON THE LINE
I guess, for what it's worth, AZ came into the game rapping over this '80s R&B-sounding shit, on "Life's a Bitch." A case could even be made that this album is more in the vein of his earlier work than his first couple of independent releases.
FIRE
AZ, at the ripe old age of 38 or whatever, is as good a rapper as he's always been. He's one of the few dudes from his era who's hardly lost a step. (Compare him to, say, Jay-Z, who sucks now.) But the thing is, he's so good he's actually kinda boring at times, especially over so much of this R&B-sounding shit. This is one of the few tracks where he really comes off to me, even though the production is especially ridiculous, in a Dipset sort of way.
WHAT WOULD YOU DO
Way too much singing on this before the rap even kicks in. It's like that one track from side two of 8 Diagrams. Also, the tinny horns on this grate my ears.
DEAD END
On the one hand, this sounds way too much like Jay-Z's "Izzo," or whatever it's called. But on the other hand, the vocal samples on this make the hair stand up on my arms. And it's not like I'd ever listen to that song of my own volition.
(Sidenote: You know what's even worse than "Izzo?" The version of "Izzo" Jay performs on that MTV Unplugged album and, if I'm not mistaken, in Fade to Black. I want to claw my eyes out just thinking about it.)
PARKING LOT PIMPIN'
One obvious downside of being on KOCH: apparently they don't employ anyone whose job it is to tell rappers that a song called "Parking Lot Pimping," in 2008, couldn't possibly be a good idea.
UNDENIABLE
The title track has a sort of '70s pimp feel to it, as does, erm, "Parking Lot Pimping." It's so generic though. It sounds like it could be incidental music in one of those HBO documentaries about pimping. AZ does manage to turn in what I think is one of his more inspired vocal performances here, I think because the BPMs on this are upped a few notches. Rap these days, for the most part, is entirely too slow.
GO GETTA
AZ and Ray J, aka the Ladies Champ, trade stories of fucking women. AZ almost certainly could've sung the chorus better than Ray J did. Speaking of which, I always thought he was Ray J was a rapper. Goes to show what I know.
NOW I KNOW
If you notice, AZ likes to have a brief conversation with himself at the beginning of a song, before he starts rapping. He's old school like that. I wonder if he plans that out, or if it just sorta happens.
A GAME
I believe I heard a version of this recently in a mixshow where it was sped up a few notches. It sounded way better. As it is here, you can't help but notice that there really isn't a whole lot to the backing track. It's simple in a bad way.
THE HARDEST (VIDEO MIX)
AZ talked Styles P into letting him tack this one on to the end here. I'm sure they share a certain camaraderie, dwelling in the KOCH Graveyard and all.
COMMENTS: The knock against Undeniable that I've heard is that it's worse than the past couple of AZ albums because it's that much more smoothed out, but I don't know. I was never too crazy about those last two AZ albums, and I found myself liking this one somewhat more than them, despite the fact that its production isn't necessarily my kind of thing.
BEST TRACKS: "Fire" "Undeniable" "The Hardest"
