Nas confidently boasts in his now-classic intro, Queens Get the Money, "I'm over their heads, like a bulimic on a seesaw." And while you won't find hip-hop quotables quite on the level of the gifted Mr. Jones', fellow Queens natives and hip-hop vets Capone -N- Noreaga have forged their own successful path in the game with a decidedly more straightforward and thugged-out approach.First debuting in 1997 with the impressive and much-acclaimed 'The War Report,' and continuing with 2000's aptly titled 'The Reunion,' the duo from Queensbridge and LeFrak City, N.Y., respectively, have always stuck to their street-wise guns, and 'Channel 10' -- the oft-incarcerated group's latest effort named after the tenth track on 'Report' -- is more of the same.
Enlisted to help with mic duties this time around are heavyweights such as Busta Rhymes ('Rotate'), Mobb Deep ('Wobble'), Clipse, and Tha Dogg Pound ('My Hood') to name a few, lending star power and different voices to an otherwise indistinguishable collection tracks.
'Follow the Dollar' is by far the most ambitious, sounding like a leftover production from Kool Keith's Automator-laced 'Lost in Space' album. But it works, and provides a welcome and creative deviation that stands out considering its company.
'Beef' bangs with all the intensity of a pull-no-punches prison flick and finds CNN at their grimy best, growling cautionary tales on the game and all its pitfalls. And "United We Stand" is a strangely-uplifting offering defiantly proclaiming neither Capone or Noreaga has retirement plans in sight for the future.
But the title track proves the most instructive. In case anyone harbored hopes that '10' would prove a change in course for the group after such a long layoff, the gangster-obsessed MCs set the record straight from the outset:
"I think the world wanna know, where CNN done been/ Still holding it down, still Channel 10."
Enough said.
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