Godfather Buried Alive (Def Jam)

Like boxing, just when you think that hip-hop cannot take a yet more ludicrous turn, something comes along to defy belief once more. Jarmaal Barrow (aka Shyne) is currently four years into a ten year stretch for, amongst other things, shooting someone in the face in a New York night club, but still signed a mega bucks deal with Def Jam from behind bars, enabling him to record his second album. Some of the tracks have admittedly been pieced together, TuPac style, from outtakes from his first record, while others – now get this – were recorded down the phone from jail. You really couldn’t make it up. All of which gives great column inches, great sales (number one in the US anyone?) but a frankly piss poor record. Shyne’s inability to actually make the recording sessions has left a jarring mix of his rough vocal style with guest mcs and singers (including the obligatory Ashanti) and stream of samples. Neither do the lyrics hold any surprises. You might want to argue that Shyne’s current state of affairs backs up his boasts that he is the real deal amongst a world of fakes, but that certainly doesn’t make him a hero in my book. In fact, there’s a rather sad fatality to it all, capsulated by his claim that “From the moment I came out of my mother’s womb I was doomed”. Perhaps Shyne does feel that he had no way out of his life other than this, but by turning his experiences into such a shoddy soap opera and with the music industry giving the impression that young black men are only of interest to them when their lives spin into turmoil, neither are offering much hope to those that follow.