Originally Posted by
noel411
Like the majority of good modern hip hop albums, this album is ruined by being far too long. The first 3rd or so is great, and as I was listening to it for the first time I thought the Wu had really come up with a winner here. Then boom, there's about 20 minutes straight of filler. Completely ruins the album for me and instantly dismisses any possibility of it being a truly great album. The final 3rd or so of the album is made up of a few great tracks, some good ones, and some more filler. All in all there is at least half an hour of filler on this album. From what I recall the album is about 70 mins. Cut out that half hour of filler and you have 40 mins of great tracks. A perfect length for an album imo. Could have been a possible classic if they'd done that. I for one am just not interested in listening to an hour + of music of which a good percentage is uninspired and forgettable. And as I am a person who enjoys actual albums rather than individual tracks, or partial albums, this album fails me in that regard, and will soon be forgotten along with the rest of the last 5 odd years of hip hop I've heard.
Great hip hop albums don't exist anymore. This isn't worthy of the title "Cuban Linx II" imo. It is not the cohesive project the original album was. It's not even close. The first album was long too, but every track was a relevant and worthy part of a brilliant whole. This album is littered with filler that breaks up the parts of the album in which momentum is built. People aren't interested in making actual albums anymore. They just wanna record as many tracks as they can with as many important mc's and producers as they can, then throw them together and call it an album. Or a mixtape if it really fails to come together. This album obviously has direction and a lot of it was clearly intended to come together as an album. It just suffers from all the other shit that was thrown in the mix.
Still, it is probably the best Wu solo in several years. Probably as far back as No Said Date and possibly even further back. It's a very good album which could have been great. A pity, but at least it does offer a lot of memorable tracks.