I said I should have known better when I heard the single “Dem Girlz’ and discovered with more than a modicum of surprise and embarrassment that I actually really liked it. With it’s cooky Jay-Z sample and it’s ‘comic’ take on hip-hop it was an effortless piece of bubblegum: reckless and commanding, all at the same time.
One might remark on the ‘cartoon realism’ of the delivery – imbuing it with all the undeserved irony and self-awareness of a post-modernist classic (that it’s patently incapable of) and suggest something to the effect that like that skoozy little shit for brains chancer, Eninem, here’ something of rampant ‘cultural’ and ‘literary’ worth.
Well there’s not. That would be absurd.
What you do have is 40 or so minutes of tough talking bubblegum with enough Rizla shaped jabs and breaks to rip a hole in the ceiling.
With a relieving, bare minimum of R&B schmaltz to contend with, the duo crank up the tunz and the attitude to deliver a perfectly pitched bad-ass record. And although we could really do without that ludicrous gangsta mythology and the pity-me paranoia of Roads Crazy – it’s what it’s really all about – unremarkable English 20 year olds with nothing at all to say and nothing at all to look forward to – but with enough well lifted ghetto narratives to fall back on for comfort.