Album Review: DJ Honda – IV (2009)

Album Review: DJ Honda - IV (2009)
Rating: 3 out of 5 Potholes

The question  is whether the title means IV like the roman numeral 4? Or I.V. like intravenous?

This thing starts with a couple high profile cameos. Every track holds the promise of something new and exciting. The Mos Def track “Magentic Arts” was one that seemed like a sure shot from the giddy-up with a smooth horn sample jacked up by a wailer of a vocal chop. But then Mos brings about 4 ½ – 5 bars of a verse before wandering through a forest of filler and shout outs, stumbling into silence and letting the ample beat ride out.

[Is it unfair to criticize a DJ’s album for the work of a featured MC?]

The Kool G Rap track is creatively titled “KGR and Honda”, but don’t be fooled, it’s like a 21st remake of “Ill Street Blues”. No lie. Probably the hardest G Rap verse I’ve heard in a few years.

[I might be impressed by the rest of this album.]

The EPMD track is a straight up banger, and Parrish drops a nice little feature over a beat that’ll make you chuckle if you turn it up loud. The Group Home track gets a little bit of shrug, mostly because the beat has the feel of obligatory serious, marching drum snare track in the vain of that Eminem song where he responded to, and verbally bitch slapped, Benzino a few years back.

Guess who features on the song “The Incredible”? Can you guess? Try really hard. That’s right. Fred Durst. Didn’t you wonder why you hadn’t heard him on anything lately? No? Really? Oh man. This song is awful. It’s offensive at best.

[Should’ve stayed in the Grotto, Fred. You already get to chill in the Playboy Mansion, don’t sweat the music stuff anymore. Just chill, or party, or whatever it is you’ve been doing for the last several years that wasn’t recording shit like this.]

“That Knock” featuring Problemz is a designer impostor for something of Jay-Z’s circa ’96-98. Just because their similar, doesn’t mean that more expensive one isn’t better, because you know what it cost you, hence making it inherently more valuable. In this case, it’s not hard to tell Problemz has studied the book of HOV, but just doesn’t have the smoothness or the delivery of the man in his prime. Plus, the beat sounds a little polyester. Synthetic. Itchy. Likely to stick to your skin on a hot day.

Some of the production sounds like it was made from a “Hip Hop Loops Pack” and then assembled into interestingly arranged, but overall, occasionally unspectacular or flat.

[I was wrong earlier when I thought there was potential for me to like the rest of the album.]

There are a spattering a nice cuts on this album. Might be 50/50 songs-wise. Might be a little worse.  Nothing except the Fred Durst track is outright offensive, the unexceptional tracks are just that though: Unexceptional.

IV might stand for intravenous, because parts of this album are in need of life support and a medicinal drip.