Let’s be honest. Few expect much from Yung Joc when it comes to lyrics. Even Yung Joc openly admits he ca’t rap (and sadly, here he is making rap albums and selling lots of them). Still, Joc is releasing the follow up to his widely popular debut by dropping Hustlenomics with good reason. After all, the man had everyone from your buddy to Tom Cruise doing his dance. Why not release another album if you can dup people into buying it?

“You laughed about my dance. I walked it out the bank,” he boldly proclaims early on in the album. This assures the listener that Joc isn’t as foolish as some may have thought with his “eenie, meenie, miney, mo” past.  That’s all peachy, but what happens when there is no special dance? The lyrics impress like broken arms throw balls. It’s tragic. 

“I’m the seventh letter of the alphabet. I’m a g,” he notes in the chorus to “I’m a G.” He follows this, by claiming he’s “a A,B,C,D,E,O,G.” For some reason, he has a kid recite the alphabet wrong in the chorus. It reeks of a confused MC with little imagination.

Coffee Shop, which was meant to be his next “big” single, sounds like one of the worst things to hit radio since mp3’s, with terrible guest verses and a beat that sounds like a track out of Hip-Hop Harry. Later, the Trick Daddy assisted Chevy Smile is reminiscent of a corny automobile commercial. (I hope they got a check, though. A hustler would, right?) 

He isn’t a complete mess on the mic. He manages to flow well over some of the beats, but it isn’t enough. Hope for a positive outcome is lost with more blunders throughout the album. One example comes as Joc boldly goes against the rules of the language. “I bang Brazil broads under the palm trees.” He does not bang Brazilian broads. He bangs Brazil broads. Lyrically, many of the other songs are simply forgettable fillers.

Relief comes in the form of production, which is very good at times. The thumping sounds grab one’s attention from the get-go with Play Your Cards. The same goes for Getting to Da Money, and Hustlenomics. Brand New and Living the Life add a smooth sound that helps balance out the album’s sound, but there isn’t enough heat to truly help the album survive.  

This is not some Haterade concoction. Yung Joc shows that he is not a good rapper. As mentioned, he admits to this in some recent interviews, so you can’t expect much from the man lyrically. But knowing he is a shitty rapper doesn’t give him a pass to make a shitty album. On an album full of bewildering lines, no special dances and no real draw in general, Joc is left without much to dance on. Even if he does “walk it out the bank,” we are still grading a rap album and Hustlenomics is a class that should be missed.