June 26, 2003 @ 9:00 pm
Baby - Birdman (Cash Money/Universal)
With Juvenile and B.G.
With Juvenile and B.G. gone, the Cash Money roster is conspicuously thinner—there’s 20-year-old Lil Wayne; producer turned rapper Mannie Fresh; R&B veteran Teena Marie; and Baby, a co-CEO with a predilection for ostentation not seen since Puffy circa 1998. Adopting the moniker Birdman—“I fly in any weather,” he says—Baby wants to prove that Cash Money rolls on, regardless of whose name is on the records. Ambition isn’t everything, though. Cash Money used to score with the biggest bounce south of the Mason-Dixon, but Mannie Fresh has lost a couple of steps; in recent years, he’s been eclipsed by the Neptunes (who contribute the sinister “What Happened to That Boy” on this CD). Sure, he brings punishing electro synths and hollow drums on “Say It Ain’t So,” but all the neck-snapping, homegrown production in the world can’t redeem Baby, who flows like a car stuck in neutral. His materialistic rhymes may be gaudy, but they’re not complex, and entire songs devoted to ice (“Do That”) and rims (“Keeps Spinnin’”) lose their luster fast. Baby should take this broken bling and learn to fly again.
Article tags: Baby, Birdman, Cash, Money/Universal
Page printed from:
http://www.vibe.com/music/revolutions/2003/06/baby_birdman_cash_moneyuniversal/
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