Disco de P. Diddy: “No Way Out [Clean]”

OK, OK, everyone loves to hate on Puff and I am no exception. His ratio of talentlessness to money made is absolutely staggering-- he's like a hideous, acne-scarred pimp who sits at the bar surrounded by gorgeous women, prompting you to scratch your head in awe and confusion. How the hell does he do it?

But let's get down to the nitty gritty. For one thing, Diddy can't rap to save his life. It's bad enough he doesn't pen his own lyrics ("Don't worry if I write rhymes, I write checks" being his classic defense), but his flow is an abomination. My twelve-year-old nephew spits better verses than this clown-- his monotone tongue stumbles over rhymes like he's gunning for George W's "Worst Public Speaker" award.

And the lyrics he has ghostwritten for vast sums of money are like third rate Fabolous scribbles. I mean, c'mon, "I'm the mack-aroni with the cheese"? How did that line ever make it to tape?

Finally, his beat-making gives hip hop producers everywhere a bad name. By jacking old classics in their entirety and rhyming awkwardly over them, Puffy reinforces the notion that sampling is the art of "stealing" good music from the old days and repackaging it for ignorant young'ins who don't know any better. Talented samplers like DJ Shadow, Premiere, RJD2, The Bomb Squad, The dust Brothers et al use elements from old records to create entirely new compositions. Diddy takes a great Police song and turns it into a maudlin lament for a fallen rap legend that is such an obvious bid to cash in it's insulting. For shame!

All that said, this album has one redeeming quality, which is why I gave it TWO stars, and that is the presence of Biggie Himself on a handful of tracks. Proof that Biggie was only getting better with age, these tracks demonstrate why he is still considering the greatest MC of all time by many hip hop fans. Check BIG's verses on "Victory" and "Young G's" -- these two tracks along are worth the price of admission...

Puff dud or poop diddy whatever his name is must really be desperate for some fast cash with the release of this garbage.What an opportunity to exploit his friends death and make some money by stealing the police song every breath you take and renaiming it "ill be missing you".Everybody knows that puff daddy was never really friends with biggie and used him only to make more money.P diddy was responsible for the deaths of 9 people for failing to do his job as an event promoter and he let his so called friend go to jail for him.People you must ask yourself if this is the type of of self centerd and greedy human being you would want to support with your money.This man has absolutely no talent as he steals other hits and calls them his own.To conclude,Im very surprised no one has sued p diddy for beat jacking and I would really give this cd 0 stars if I could.Have a nice day.

To any real hip-hop head out there, do not, under any circumstances, buy this album. It is, far and away, one of the most insipid "rap" albums ever put to wax. I will always hold Biggie in the highest regard, as his lyracal skills were of amazing quality, but Puff Daddy is a disgrace to anyone who has ever considered themselves a solid rapper. Sampling is okay, when it is not the focal point of a song, but rather used as a way to further the artist's rhyme...but this is ridiculous. Eventually people are just going to listen to the real song anyways.

Puff Daddy is, in my opinion, one of the most over-rated rap performers in the current climate. As a rapper he has a generic flow, trips over his lyrics with alarming regularity and generally comes across as a bad copy of most of the other East Coast rappers. As a producer, he would have to rate as one of the least imaginative of all. Where other producers sample quality music and make it new, Puffy removes entire sections of songs and goes to no effort to liven them up.

"No Way Out" is quite an appropriate title for this album, as there really is no way out for Puffy and friends from the trap which they have made for themselves - the trap of cheap lyrics, bad beats and generally uninspired work.

I might as well admit that when I bought this album, I was very pleased and did my "I am very hardcore" routine for a few weeks. Now that I compare Puffy to the Gurus, Q-Tips and Chali 2nas of this world, I can see exactly how awful he really is.

As previously mentioned, the music is one of the big problems with this album. Puffy has "sampled" (his words) or "ripped" (mine and most others) backign music from - among others - The Police ("Every Breath You Take", used on "I'll Be Missin' You"), David Bowie ("Let's Dance", used on "Around The World") and Grandmaster Flash ("The Message", used on "Can't Nobody Hold Me Down"). In doing so, he has attempted to revert sampling to the old, illegal days. Every single one of the songs sampled is an accepted classic - in the case of "The Message", classic may be an understatement - and Puffy's treatment of them (de-fanginf guitars, speeding up beats and so on) shows his total disregard for music in general.

The lyrics of the album fall into two main divisions. Some are the big "let's party, get drunk, take drugs and have lots of sex" theme. As well as being very unoriginal, these tracks have possibly the worst backing music that I've heard and thus lose the party appeal that they may have originally had. The rest of the lyrics are mourining the death of Notorious BIG. Yes, it is a terrible loss that BIG is dead, however the relentless messages to him throughout this and other Bad Boy albums begins to sound a bit creepy. What's even more creepy is the appearance of BIG on a few tracks and on the back cover - the man is dead, maybe leave him dead.

Of course, the other problem is that Puffy has brought in a collection of guest stars. On the surface, this is a great relief from his lack of talent - however, the guests don't really seem to try very hard. Ma$e (who shows up far too much) is hardly the most talented rapper around, but to compound the problem he produces carbon copies of the "Message" chorus on "Can't Nobody" and also raps out what sounds like the chorus of 2 Unlimited's "Break My Stride" in the same track. What's also well worth noticing is the fact that where skilled rappers mould their lyrics to the beat, these rappers do not even make that attempt.

Finally, there is that monstrosity "I'll Be Missin You". It's great to see that BIG was venerated so highly over the course of his brief career but "Missin You" is quite frankly the most awful way to send him off - the Police were clearly insane to let "Every Breath" be sampled for this track.

I would have given this album one star but I can't really bring myself to be that cruel for some reason. Don't buy this album unless you either like wasting money or are one of those pop-gangsta fans. Everyone else, buy if you want a good laugh but otherwise save your money.

I am a fan of many types of music -- you name it, I'm probably diggin' it. Hip-hop is part of what I grew up on. This album, with it's unsubstantiated platinum success and unjustified Grammy wins, represents everything that is _wrong_ with hip-hop.

Now, before the infantile, elementary-minded pop crowd labels me a "playa hata", allow me to illustrate my disgust for this album:

1) The obvious beat-jacking. 15 out of 17 tracks contain a sample of some sort. This is not creative by any means; it is tacky and it represents the commercial, lowest common denominator production that has plagued rap music for the better part of this decade. Sampling should serve to accentuate a song, not dominate it. (see: X-Cutioners, DJ Shadow, and the work of DJ Premier for examples of what sampling is _supposed_ to be; the curious could also look for the "Deep Concentration" compilations.)

2) Puffy wants to be everything to everyone. Fact of the matter is, he lacks the talent and the fortitude to be a producer or an MC. With his business ventures, he's better off as a label head a la Russell Simmons. Why has he not yet realized this?

3) To call this hip-hop is grossly inaccurate. Anybody who knows the music knows that hip-hop is comprised of 4 key elements: DJing, MCing, Breaking, and Gaffing. That fact that Puff hasn't mastered any of these arts is reflected in the music, which has no being placed in the hip-hop pantheon. Nowhere on this album is the essence of hip-hop captured, and as a result, it bores the higher-level thinking listener.

4) Puff manages to contradict himself at every turn. Just as he mourns a friend's loss, he's rapping (as wack as can be) about a hedonistic, narcissistic, gangsta lifestyle. With so much of this repetitive bull$#|t getting heavy play on radio and video music channels, the need for something fresh and enlightening grows.

5) Those heads that call this "the greatest album ever" and deify Puff as a "genius" need to pull their heads out of the bubblegum pop cosmos and do their homework on hip-hop. This is among the more powerful artforms out there today, and it does not need to be homogenized and abused by the likes of Puff.

(Recommended artists: De La Soul, Tribe Called Quest, Jungle Brothers, Outkast, Gang Starr, Digable Planets, The Roots, Brand Nubian, The Coup, Xzibit, Bahamdia, Hieroglyphics, Aceyalone, and the entire Rawkus Entertainment catalog, to name a few.)

There, I've said my piece. I'm off to memory lane to the tune of "Dynamite!", off the Roots' "Things Fall Apart", an album truly worthy of your time and money.