Juelz Santana

The CD title is enough to make you ask: is this real? Is he really making crack on the back of his liner notes? Is Dave Chappelle’s crack head Tyrone loitering outside a window with the Twin Towers intact behind him? Yes, yes and mos def. Crack music — thank you Kanye West — is back, but why now? Why, when crack dealers go legit (Jay-Z), does Dipset’s Juelz Santana flood the market with not one, but two CDs worth of unwanted nostalgia? That’s 52 tracks — inspired by crack. There is nothing redeeming about this; it is bloated, insipid and outdated. New rule: you can't make an album where all you do is hijack other people's beats, especially when Kris Kross’s schoolyard classic "Jump” literally becomes an exercise in evading bullets. Cam'ron, Jim Jones, Game and T.I. stop by, but their performances are forgettable. A terrible release from an MC who’s proud to call himself "crack in the flesh.”