Decorative lyrics, nice flow, nice intro into the game, a track featuring Mike Tyson, two faltered albums, problems with a Haitian refugee, beef with a King of New York, a Def veteran, a white boy and a label change but still Canibus stands like the Statue of Liberty. Returning to the game with a new attitude, a new label and new crew, Canibus hits us with his third album “C” True Hollywood Stories, which I feel is the MC’s reintroduction to the underground that raised him.
21 tracks, and all production handled by members of Archive Music (the label Canibus has signed to), the MC seems to have just about found the right combination of his lyrical flow and the right beats to accentuate his flow. But the album isn’t 100% stellar as his voice and perplexing lyrics work on the brain too much.
The Introduction gives the listener a brief run down of Can’s career so far, sounding so much like a TV anchor that all that’s missing is the bad suit. Other stand out tracks include, Hate U2/Love U2 using the melody from the original Pac Man game, Box Cutta blade Runner, which sounds like a chase scene from Terminator 2, I Gotta Story To Tell, which has Canibus attacking a Roc of a man and also The Rip Off which has Can flowing with eloquence. “Who knows your fan base is enormous/ Well of course look who I toured with Wyclef/ I didn’t see 20 million cuz it wasn’t my time yet.”
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The most comedic is U Didn’t Care, which sees the return of Eminem’s Stan character. The troubled fan survived the car crash and is now touring with Canibus around the world. But the creativity stops here!
The production tends to get boring and on such tracks as Ya Teef Iz Yellow, there is no production at all, just a hi-hat and hand claps. Other falling tracks include Draft Me, Lemmie Hear Something Else and Gotta Get That Doe.
It has been said that after the beef between Canibus and LL, the larger MC was said to be obsessed with finishing the smaller one. But it seems that Canibus is stuck on past events of his career and focuses on them for his subject matter, and that draws the album down.
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Lyrically, he is still the top of the field and, with the right feedback and right amount of work, Canibus will be able to receive the respect he deserves.
