Chewing Pine

Rhymefest – Blue Collar (Allido/J Records, 2006)

(This originally appeared in the Cleveland Free Times)

Rhymefest has been rapping for a good number of years now. He beat Eminem at Scribble Jam eight years back and has worked with Kanye West before stardom hit. On his major label debut, after the independently released Raw Dawg, Rhymefest returns with more production help from West. Being touted as an intelligent, blue-collar rapper a few specifics about the album seem out of place. A number of the tracks on here are simply named after the main sample that producer of the track has chosen. In fact it seems as if the title of the sample even dictated Rhymefest’s expletive laden raps on tracks like “Devil’s Pie” and “Fever”. The raps for the most part are well put together, but occasionally stray from topics that seem to fit the persona this man has created for himself. “Get Down” and “Chicago-Rillas” comment on getting as many ladies and as much cash as possible. And while that isn’t far removed from reality, the shear audacity of including yet another post-mortem ODB track is beyond reproach. Without question, it is funny to hear Big Baby Jesus sing “Buttercup”, but probably the marketing team that Rhymefest employs could have found a different ploy to sell records.