Chris Wong Won, better known as Fresh Kid Ice of 2 Live Crew
\nfame, has seen his share of ups and downs in his career as a
\nrapper. He’s seen the band he co-founded at the top of the
\npublicity heap and has sold millions of albums over the years. He’s
\nalso seen 2 Live Crew go through more lineup changes than a
\nbaseball team stricken with food poisoning, to the point where he
\nliterally
\nis<\/i> 2 Live Crew at this stage in the game.<\/p>\n
So it does make sense to credit
\nStop Playin’<\/i> to both Won and 2 Live Crew, even if he shares
\nthe spotlight with numerous up and coming rappers (some of whom
\nprove they have the talent to make names for themselves), and while
\nthere are some weak moments on this disc, it does suggest that 2
\nLive Crew is taking the right steps toward launching a full-scale
\ncomeback.<\/p>\n
With a basis in Won’s 2000 solo disc
\nStill Nasty<\/i> (where it appears a few of these songs first
\ntook life), the Trinidad-born rapper still can dish out the sexual
\nlingo and make a sailor blush with some of his rhymes. But this
\naspect of 2 Live Crew seems to have toned down significantly —
\nsure, you still have songs like “Gimme The Pussy,” but it sometimes
\nfeels like Won is trying to create a Montell Jordan-style groove
\nbehind the raps, as heard on songs like “Shake Junk Queen” and
\n“Chinaman (In Ya Life).” It’s a more mature sound to the raps, and
\nit works well with the style of rap that Won is delivering
\nhere.<\/p>\n
There are some audio throwbacks to the old days, like on “Booty
\nDrop” and “Still Nasty (As He Wanna Be),” but to Won’s credit, he
\nseems to use these to tie his past in with the present, and the
\nmixture works well. In a sense, Won is to be credited that he
\ndoesn’t try to coast on the coattails of his past, choosing instead
\nto hint to it while pushing his raps and music forward.<\/p>\n
This doesn’t always work as well as Won would like — especially
\non the title track, which also serves as the first single. It’s not
\nthat the track is bad, but Won’s vocals seem to be buried in the
\nmix — something especially noticeable when other rappers
\nFish-N-Grits, Big Will and SIN can be heard relatively clearly.<\/p>\n
The instrumental version of “Stop Playin'” — which, in all
\nhonesty, only shows how much the samples are missed at times —
\nalso suggests that when 2 Live Crew tries to keep the songs simple
\nin their structure, they run the risk of becoming stale very
\nquickly. With no real variation in the musical backbone of this
\ntrack, one is left to question if it will have the staying power of
\nolder songs like “Me So Horny”.<\/p>\n
Still, Won holds his own remarkably well, getting help from such
\nrappers as Madd Blunted (“Shake It” — with a dancehall reggae
\ngroove that is infectious — and “Gettin’ High”), Men-E-Faces
\n(“Shake Junk Queen”) SPIN and MC Madness (“Booty Drop”). With all
\nof this, though, I did find myself wishing that Won had depended
\nless on other rappers and stuck to delivering more of the raps
\nhimself. Granted, 2 Live Crew has always been a collaborative
\neffort. But, as said before, Won is 2 Live Crew, at least until he
\ndetermines who else would fit the group well.<\/p>\n
Chances are the average listener will go into
\nStop Playin’<\/i> not expecting much from 2 Live Crew, especially
\nwith former Svengali Luther Campbell long gone from their
\nspotlight. But Won makes a solid case with this disc, and even
\ndares to hint that 2 Live Crew could well be on the cusp of a
\nfull-fledged comeback. With
\nStop Playin’<\/i>, he proves that he’s on the road there, but
\nthat the journey is still continuing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26483,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[6917],"rating":[5612],"class_list":["post-37719","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-chinaman-2-live-crew","rating-rating-b-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37719","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37719"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37719\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26483"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=37719"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=37719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}