Most of us Golden Era Hip Hop veterans know Flav as the colorful sidekick of "The Rhyme Animal" Chuck D. He was the front man of the legendary Public Enemy and Flav served as the comic relief to make group's politically charged and militant material more palatable. He was known as not only Hip Hop's most celebrated, but the original hype man. Being familiar with Flavor's solo joints ("911 Is A Joke," "Soul Power," etc.) I didn't expect any ground-breaking, lyrically astounding material. However, due to his recent success and newfound fan base who wouldn't know the difference between P.E. and ER, we must allow him to re-introduce himself. It is evident from his TV show (VH1's "The Flavor of Love") that today's listening audience is not familiar with the Flavalicious catalog, and need to be (old)schooled.

Hollywood has Flav in regular form, which can best be described as all over the place. The album finds him delving into personal topics that we are familiar with, such as his many children ("I Ain't Scared"), his time at Riker's and various other prisons ("Bridge of Pain"), and relationships gone bad ("Two Wrongs"). He takes note from fellow Hip-Hoppers-turned thespians-turned-crooners-turned-Hip-Hoppers-again, Mos Def and Andre 3000 and tries his hand at singing on a throughout the album. Instead of giving us another The Love Below, he comes close to crowning himself as the William Hung of Hip Hop. The singing is at times entertaining ("Let it Show," "Two Wrongs") and at other times terribly painful ("Hotter Than Ice," which is an ill-fated attempt at a country/western ballad). The one thing that is evident from his pseudo-musical rants is that Flav is doing what he does best: having fun.

This album would not be complete without the b-boy braggadocio of the era that Flavor originates from. On "Guess Whooz Back," Mr. Drayton attempts to mesh his old-school flow with a brief flash of modern lyricism, "Keep the party fresh like funky fresh vegetables/tomatoes, potatoes/still fuckin' runnin' from that dick in the plain clothes/when I'm on the road I keep my dick in a raincoat/blimp with a rainbow/bon-bons, wontons, soup and an egg roll." These moments are few and far between. On "Hot 1" he shows his age with lines like "Mack the flavaframalama and super duper tactics/my first name gym last name nastics/don't practice/flippin on emcees like a mattress." On "Col-Leepin" he reinterprets his own "Cold Lampin" with Flavor. This piece has your man rapping over an interpolation of The Beastie Boys classic "Brass Monkey," and, oh yeah, he never tells us what in the hell a "Col-Leepin" is. This is the same for much of the album; it's hard to follow the direction of the lyrical content on some of the songs ("Wonder Why") and choruses that have nothing to do with the verses ("I Ain't Scared"). You won't find any Kanye, 9th Wonder, or Bomb Squad tracks on here, but the backdrop for this opus makes it more bearable. This is a change from Flav always being the one who lightened the tone for his group.

"The Flavor of Love" has the McDonald's effect on America: You know that it's bad and has no nutritional value whatsoever, but you can't stop eating it because it's so good. I'm guessing this is the effect they were aiming for with Hollywood. We should've expected an album to be somewhere lurking, due to the success of the show and not to mention the Flavorization of the masses. We should've taken heed to the songs in the show (yes, I watch it religiously), which are the albums two most recognizable tracks (:Flavor-Man," "Platinum"). Despite these facts and the overall quality of the album, how mad can we be at Flavor? He actually made the album a lot of artists would love to make, which is the album that he wanted to make and not the labels standard. Let me rephrase that - no label would let anyone else make this type of album. And it's very ironic that the man who once proclaimed "Burn Hollywood Burn" would name his first project Hollywood. This may satisfy Flavette-hopefuls and 106 & Parkers, but for you die hard P.E. fans, this album is more "Fufi-Fufi" than "Fight The Power."