July 22, 2004 @ 6:04 am

Llyod Banks - The Hunger For More (G Unit/Interscope)

Rondell Conway

There are two sides to every coin.

There are two sides to every coin. Within G Unit (Lloyd Banks, Young Buck, Tony Yayo, and 50 Cent), it’s Banks and Buck who represent the team leader’s contrasting sides: Banks echoes 50’s slick-talking playa persona, while Buck embodies 50’s quietly charismatic thug allure. Their respective albums—The Hunger for More and Straight Outta Cashville—highlight those differences. Hunger begins with the hard-charging bass line and stadium-crowd atmosphere of “Playboy,” which serves as a thrilling backdrop for Banks’s cunning wordplay. Over the energetic lead single, “On Fire” (produced by Eminem and Kwame), he uses an impressive one-two delivery to ride the offbeat interpolation of Onyx’s “Slam.”On buzz-worthy street cuts like “Warrior” and the Alchemist-produced “Bangers,” Banks unleashes his twisted wit: “An ice pick will do your liver harm / And have you screaming in the back of the club louder than Lil Jon.” Even when rhyming over the formulaic G-funk of “I’m So Fly,” Banks is able to leave you with a memorable quote: “You don’t got to go all the way to L.A. to get your MC Eiht,” he says. And the smooth-sounding voice of neophyte crooner KC is too infectious to deny Banks the opportunity to get soft and syrupy with the ladies on “Karma.” While he excels in clever jousting, Banks lacks range and storytelling ability. Over the slow-moving bounce of “Southside Story” his dullness suffocates the sentiment of an earnest tale. The infectious hook of the Game–assisted “When the Chips Are Down” finds the twosome riding it out for the Unit with their backs against the wall. Unfortunately, when Fabolous and Banks collaborate on “The Perfect Match,” they prove to be anything but, abusing the senses with their likesounding flows. Playing yin to the other’s yang, Banks and Buck have become inseparable personalities due to G Unit’s ubiquitous sound. But their impressive solo debuts poke holes in their indivisible front. While Banks distinguishes himself as a notorious East Coast–bred MC, able to deliver cerebral similes with a sometimes irksomely monotonous flow, Buck possesses a magnetic Southern aggression that could rouse a nation of thugs. As a unit, their styles are complementary—heady and heartfelt. And as soloists, they give new meaning to the term divide and conquer.

Article tags: Llyod, Banks, Hunger, More, G, Unit/Interscope 

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