On “Ridin’ for Outro” guest artist Black Ice condemns the gangsta lifestyle and drive-by shootings, arguing that poverty, drugs and poor education are better targets for inner-city ire. “Who Ya Rolling With” declares, “Drugs is not your friends.”
This project perpetuates destructive stereotypes and uses a flood of obscenities in the process. A single line may denounce drugs, but many more glamorize them. A dozen tracks promote either Bacardi, marijuana, cognac, hash, dro, Seagram’s gin, blunts or Hypnotiq. Excess is the rule. “The Prequel” and “We Some Dogs” even talk of getting women stoned or drunk in order to take advantage of them. Women are called “b–ches” and forced to perform lewd sex acts. Explicit cuts involve lesbianism and orgasmic groaning (“Say What”), fellatio (“Rodeo,” “We Some Dogs”) and threesomes (“Tease”). References to God are flip and disrespectful. A couple of raps—one with Busta Rhymes—even find artists referring to themselves as divine. And they are ready to pass judgment in brutal fashion with lines such as “[I’m] about to blow your brains off the map” (“Never Hold Back”) and “Small-timers get left for dead in the hallways” (“Crooked Letter I”). F-words and other obscenities scurry around this CD’s dark places like cockroaches.
Tical O is typical. With the help of Snoop Dogg, Missy Elliott and others, this rapper/actor (Soul Plane, Method & Red) trots out misogynistic sex, thug violence and substance abuse.
