The 22-year-old rapper Bow Wow may boast of his mature sexual prowess on “I Ain’t Playing,” but unfortunately for him, he only has childish emcee skills.
The former kid rapper, who has been in the spotlight for almost 10 years, often tries to assert he’s a bad ass, grown man on his seventh and latest release, New Jack City II – his first album with a parental advisory sticker. He brags about his American Express on the undeniably catchy “What They Call Me” and his cunnilingus abilities on the cacophonous, Auto-Tune-poisoned “She’s My,” featuring T-Pain. But he’s not quite grown up, still copying the styles of his elders.
Even Bow Wow’s name shows a lack of innovation; it is a reference to the rapper Snoop Dogg, who discovered Bow Wow when he was an elementary school student at one of Snoop’s shows. And while Bow Wow lifts his album’s title from a 1991 movie about slinging crack, he never raps about it.
But it’s not just logistics that make Bow Wow more of a biter than a barker. His punch lines, beats and flow are all very typical – done time and again by better acts. For instance, on the steady, Southern-style track “Get That Paper,” Bow Wow adapts the flow of the song “Laffy Taffy” and spits overused lines (“Hot like Cajun”). He then sounds dull as he kicks simplistic NBA and movie references, such as “Girls say he got game like Ray Allen”.
On “Been Doin’ This,” Bow Wow tries to up his street cred with a hook and ad-libs by T.I. He probably didn’t want T.I. on the verses because the lauded trap music star would most likely overshadow him. Smart decision. Bow Wow uses T.I.’s producer, DJ Toomp, who crafts a beat fit for T.I., complete with rapid snares and head-nodding organ riffs. Bow Wow’s lyrics over the banging beat are rather pointless and shallow, especially when he attempts to speed up his flow, mimicking that of T.I.’s.
“Pole in My Basement,” is another dud on which Bow Wow uses Auto-Tune to sing and sounds as if he is imitating T-Pain. Like the R&B star, Bow Wow even throws out pervy propositions: He asks a girl to come to his basement, dance on a pole and strip for cash. This request may be even sleazier than T-Pain trying to get a girl drunk enough to sleep with him on his 2007 joint “Buy You a Drink.”
The album also suffers from three predictable R&B-style love songs in a row: “You Can Get It All,” “Like This” and “She’s My.” Each one is more tedious to listen to than its predecessor due to unmemorable lyrics and lackluster production. The drums in “You Can Get it All” overpower the seductive piano melody – a sample from TLC’s 1992 hit, “Baby-Baby-Baby.”
Despite his many shortcomings on New Jack City II, Bow Wow is not a terrible rapper. He just isn’t special or unique. But he can hold his own on decent songs, such as “Roc the Mic,” which features his mentor and producer Jermaine Dupri. Dupri and Bow Wow trade four-bar verses that describe their Batman-and-Robin relationship.
Bow Wow is musically charismatic enough to maintain his teenage fans, but it’s doubtful older and wiser hip-hop heads will be fooled by his grown-man braggadocio. Maybe Bow Wow is better off sticking to his other gig – acting – and trying out for a movie called New Jack City II.
arush@umd.edu
RATING: 2 out of 5 stars
