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Do or Die
Victory
Label: Rap-A-Lot
After a couple of years of internal restructuring and parent label switches (from Virgin to Priority and back to Virgin), Houston-based Rap-A-Lot records strides back into the game, looking to reap the fruits of a Southern hip-hop movement it kick-started more than a decade ago. (Remember the Geto Boys?) But grand returns are supposed to be, well, grand. If Do Or Die's Victory is leading the charge, the return may be less than, er, victorious.
Do or Die made some noise back in 1997 with the glossy "Po Pimp." The selling point this time is the jiggling "Can U Make It Hot," with its shimmering guitar loop and stuttering track. But no amount of carnival barking can disguise this thin material, an often confusing amalgam of lukewarm R&B hooks, pseudo Bone verbal gymnastics, and warmed over Timbaland-style tracks. Some tracks, like "La, La, La," sound inexcusably bad, more like demos than products. Others, like "Keep it Real" (yes, that's the title), trade in clichés so obvious you wonder if these heads spent the last few years in sensory deprivation. "If You Don't Eat" (which sounds like an outtake from Juvenile's "Ha" sessions), while derivative, feels positively modernistic by comparison. Pass on this one.
-- Tony Green
August 25, 2000
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Release: August 29, 2000
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