Bay Area veteran emcee Mistah F.A.B. recently dropped his sixth official studio album, Son of a Pimp, Pt. 2. The album is a follow up to his second studio album Son of a Pimp which was released 11 years ago in 2005. The new album is extremely reliant on features just like the first volume. Featured artists include bonafide musicians as well as lesser-known emcees. These include Jadakiss, Kendrick Lamar, G-Eazy, Boosie Badazz, KXNG Crooked (aka Crooked I), Tech N9ne, B.o.B., Too Short, Snoop Dogg, Carl Thomas, Bobby V, 2 Chainz, Dyson, E-40, Schoolboy Q, Lupe Fiasco, Slim Thug, Pall Wall, Z-Ro and many more. The entire project is loaded with 21 tracks.
On the positive side the project manages to keep the west coast sound which was popularized by the likes of DJ Quik, which is refreshing in this era where trap music rules. Mistah F.A.B. also raps with that eloquent west coast accent with a lot of stress on the Rs and Ls reminiscent of the likes of Ice Cube and Mac 10. It’s a pretty good listen overall.
On the negative side the album has way too many features. It doesn’t take you through any musical journey when you listen from start to finish. It’s basically a compilation album. It feels like F.A.B. tried to cram as many big names as he could in the project. It feels like he just did a bunch of songs and in the end decided to put them together and call it an album. His voice isn’t heard enough in the album due to the countless features. So that’s a big letdown for a person like me who likes it when an album takes you through a journey. It doesn’t have to be as intricate as Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly, but it’s awesome if the songs connect in one way or another to paint a bigger picture as is the case in the aptly-titled Da T.R.U.T.H. album The Big Picture, Lupe Fiasco’s The Cool, or even The Game’s Documentary 2 which surprised me because it had a recurring theme of gang violence and street life, especially in the second disc.
Nonetheless it’s a decent album for what it is. The production is dope and the flows are dope. It’s one of those albums which I probably wouldn’t listen to again from start to finish again but it’s not bad at all, just not my cup of tea.
The album is available for streaming on various platforms including Apple Music and Spotify. You can also purchase it on iTunes if you wanna get your own copy and support the artist. You can also listen to one of the promotional singles below titled Survive which features Kendrick Lamar, KXNG Crooked and Kobe Honeycutt.
