Layzie Bone
Album: The New Revolution
Release Date: August 22, 2006
Label: Thump Records

Review:
On paper, a lot is wrong with Layzie Bone’s August 22 release "The New Revolution". The album has a poorly planned release date, virtually no promotion, odd guest appearances, and an unlikely record label. As Bone Thugs-N-Harmony prepares for a full-blown comeback with a group album set for a September 19 release and another coming in the following year, Layzie appears to have sneaked in a solo album at the worst possible time. But after giving the album a few listens, this date almost makes sense. While always regarded as a talented and entertaining rapper, Layzie’s solo releases have always been spotty and plagued with cluttering filler tracks. 2001’s "Thug By Nature" provided everything the title would suggest and nothing more, and 2005’s messy "It’s Not A Game" was barely tolerable, mostly unreleased tracks spanning his whole career thrown together on a single disc. His collaboration album with Young Noble was definitely a step in the right direction, but this new release does not continue in that manner. If "The New Revolution" could be described in one word, it’s awkward. His head-scratching decision to sign with Hi-Power Records doesn’t seem to pay off, with guest appearances from numerous obscure chicano rappers that don’t mesh well with Layzie’s style. Much of these collaborations are spent with various Mr. Criminals and Mr. Capone-Es shouting "West coast! South Central!" type of cries and Layzie trying to draw a connection to Cleveland. Speaking of awkward, the only Bone member, or should I say former Bone member, to show up is Bizzy, for the forced collaboration "Streets". What’s left of the formerly strong Mo Thugs collective also shows up for the uninspired "Touchdown".

Layzie’s inconsistent lyricism on his solo albums has always been part of what lent to his troubles in the field before, and "The New Revolution" is no exception. Many tracks contain the classic Bone cries of "Mo murda", "Thuggin’ for Cleveland", "Smoke some weed", which even by now are starting to grow tiresome, which would not be the case if the whole album weren’t full of them. The Bone cliches plague the album, but Lay mostly fails to bring any originality to them; a Bone fan will feel like they’ve heard most of these verses before. Production ranges from decent to sounds-like-it-was-made-on-my-cousin’s-laptop, but none would be referred to as great, often just minimal beats and instrumentals. For the most part, Lay just fails to deliver the thug tails, the slower melodic tracks, or the triple-time verses that usually work so well for him.

The first full song is "Vote For Me", which is certainly a highlight for the album but doesn’t even fill its potential. It has nice slow production, and Layzie drops a couple relevant and conscious verses, exploring the world’s problems and calling for unity as Bone did on tracks like "Change the World" and "Home" in the past. However, at the end when Lay declares, "I should be your president...vote for me!" it left me scratching my head. It made his message for the whole song unclear and just makes it sound confused. "Mo Murder" bears the same name as the classic Bone song off the "E. 1999 Eternal" album, but no one would ever confuse the two. It’s a forced collaboration with Big Sloan, with generic production and uninspired verses and chorus containing the same cliches that we’ve heard from Bone spinoffs for ten years. The words and production of "For My Weed Heads" and "I Get Higher" are barely distinguishable, both fine tracks but the two together are redundant. They both are about Layzie’s sheer love of the ganja, why we should all have a puff, et cetera. They both have a Latin guitar backing and a sung chorus, and they’re both weed songs for the Bone Thugs vaults. "Midwest-Westcoast Connection" is the most awkward collaboration, this with Hi-Power rapper Mr. Criminal. The production is decent upbeat woozy g-funk, but the collabo is as awkward as the title would suggest. This is followed by "From the 99", which might sound like just another Cleveland reppin’ thug tune, which basically it is. However, we haven’t had any of these songs for a few years from any Bone member, so it’s an enjoyable track. Lay remembers the other thugs lost on "For the Thugs That’s Gone", which works pretty well. "Wanted to Be a Soldier" really cramps Layzie’s style for his Hi-Power collaborators, as does a later track, "These Hi-Power Soldiers", neither of which sound have ended up on a Layzie Bone album. Both are awkward, forced, and irrelevant to anything. "Say Lady" with Mr. Criminal turns out to be one of the best tracks on the disc, well produced and entertaining. "Streets", with the Bizzy Bone appearance, does pretty well for what it’s intended for but again sounds uncomfortable. The odd outro starts with a Bizzy Bone verse and then just kind of fades into a weird advertisement.

"The New Revolution" doesn’t really contain any bad tracks, but has no great ones either. At the end, I find that it’s a pretty uninspired release, even if it isn’t terrible. Layzie is a truly talented artist and can definitely do better than this; I feel like I have heard a lot of this album before. This isn’t one I will be listening to much repeatedly. Bone fans such as myself may enjoy this because of the lack of recent music from the camp, but with so much scheduled for the near future, this one should be quickly forgotten, and that might just be okay.

No profanity, or inaproppriate remarks.