Monday night, Beanie Sigel gave an audience of about 100 people in Detroit a full preview of his senior set, The Solution. Beans gave summaries of each song before it was played, and silently rapped along to each track while sipping drinks and interacting with the audience members. “It’s definitely to me my best body of work,” Beans states at the beginning of the session. “A classic."

Rounding out at 15 tracks long (including two “bonus tracks”), The Solution is a full-course meal. Beans and Styles P trade bars/bodies on “You Ain’t Ready For Me,” Beans successfully delivers a club banger with the Cool & Dre-laced “Bout That,” and “Gutted” sees Jay staying in street mode to keep up with the recently-released Roc boy’s call-out to herbs. Introspective and conceptual material lies at the disc’s heart though: he, Scarface and Raheem DeVaughn collaborate for the keep-ya-head-up anthem “The Bridge,” and “Dear Self,” which Beans says is the first song he wrote after his release, sees him arguing with his conscience in a mirror. Curveballs include the Ozzy Ozbourne-featured “Judgment Day,” which plays like a sequel to Jay-Z’s “99 Problems” with its guitar-driven backdrop, and strip club anthem “Pass the Patron,” which sees him rhyming alongside Ghostface, Peedi and a singing Diddy. With beats from Kanye West and Just Blaze notably absent (as on Freeway’s new Free At Last), production duties are dominated by Dre & Vidal and Reefa, with help from the veteran likes of Rockwilder and Dame Grease.

A surprisingly charismatic Beans joked with the DJ for playing songs too early, gave humorous descriptions to songs (“In Philly…a nigga that tries to front on a bitch and pulls up in his man’s wheels, that nigga’s ‘gutted.’ That nigga that be coming to dice games talking bout ‘No bets,’ that nigga’s ‘gutted.’”), and freestyled acapella after the last track.

Beanie Sigel, The Solution tracklisting according to listening party:

1. All of the Above f. R. Kelly (prod. The Runners)
2. Bout That (prod. Cool & Dre)
3. You Ain’t Ready For Me f. Styles P (prod. Dame Grease)
   
4. Go Low f. Rock City (prod. Eric Hudson)
5. Gutted f. Jay-Z (prod. Reefa)
6. Pass the Patron f. Diddy, Ghostface, Peedi Crakk (prod. Rockwilder)
7. I’m In (prod. Chad West)
8. Hustlas, Haze and Highways (prod. Dre & Vidal)
9. What They Gon Say To Me (prod. Dre & Vidal)
10. Judgment Day f. Ozzy Ozbourne (prod. Dre & Vidal)
11. The Bridge f. Scarface, Raheem DeVaughn (prod. Reefa)
12. Dear Self f. James Blunt (prod. Dre & Vidal)
13. Prayer f. Raheem DeVaughn)(prod. Dre & Vidal)
14. Children Are The Future (prod. Dre & Vidal) [Bonus]
    
15. Creep Low (prod. Reefa) [Bonus]