Oldie but a baddie

I haven't had the time or gumption to write a new review as of late, so here is an old review i submitted for clamor magazine last year that didnt get published.

I've been listening to a lot of modest mouse, reflections eternal, and ghostface killah's Supreme Clientle. I realize that i tend to acquire more music than i really have time to listen to, so it's kind of a treat to go back to stuff i had put on the side and rediscover it. Still i could go to amoeba tomorrow and easily pick up thirty albums, and still have stuff i'd want to buy. I'm not sure what the psychology is behind obsessive record-acquiring. AM i trying to fill up some void in my life with music? I hope that isnt it. I like to think that there is just so much music in the world, all of which represents someones voice, ideas, thoughts, feelings, etc., that i am on a neverending mission to listen to all of it that i can. A good song reaffirms my faith in humanity.

Anyways, here is a review of the horrendous and rightfully obscure chubbie baby.
check it out in a bargain bin near you.
pt


Chubbie Baby
Volume One
Dipset, 2006
www.dipsetmixtapes.com



On one of the skits on this album, Chubbie Baby announces that his jewelry costs almost as much as the Eiffel Tower, and if he sold it all, along with a few of his cars, he could buy said Tower and go chill in Paris. I'm not sure how he amassed this fortune, whether it was through rapping, producing, being a radio announcer, a club owner, or his past dealing cocaine and "her'on". I do know that pretty much all you need to know about Chubbie Baby you can tell from looking at his medallion on the cover of the album. It's a jewel-encrusted, platinum and gold bald eagle like the one on the back of a dollar bill, only instead of holding an olive branch and quiver of arrows in its talons, it's holding two .45's.

The aspiring mogul and member of the Dipset/Headbangaz/Diplomats crews comes at you straight outta Columbus, Ohio, with 19 tracks of laid-back gangsta rap, with introductions by both Chubbie himself and Cam'ron. When he's not bragging about his outrageous wealth, Chubbie is expounding upon his many skills - rapping skills, lovemaking skills, drug-dealing skills, and producing skills. He may be a legitimate businessman, but don't think he won't fuck you up if you dis him, because he can totally bring the pain.

Chubbie's role model is the Notorious B.I.G. Besides girth, he shares Biggie's likable personality, gruff voice, and dreams of creating a rap empire and making mounds of paper in the process. Unfortunately he has neither the production values or rhyming skills of the late Bad Boy. The production cuts this record off at the knees. The rhymes are all shouted, blown out, and mixed way too high over the generic lazy keyboards and occasional sped-up soul sample. In the hands of a Timbaland, Dre, or Kanye, Chubbie might be able to generate some real excitement. This disc, however, doesn't do his rapping any favors.

Fans of mixtapes and regional hip-hop, along with Cam'ron fans and Diplomats completists, might want to check this out. Or they may want to check out the thousand other self-released mixtapes that came out in the last fifteen minutes, all of which have a decent chance of being better than this disc.
-Patrick Sean Taylor