Mixtape Review:

Reviewed by Loose Cannon. ---------------------- Despite Master P labeling himself The Last Don, we all know who deserves that ample credit on the skill level, and that’s none other than the legendary Scarface. In fact, Brad Jordan may just be the last emcee to drop a classic into his middle ages. Titles for past albums such as The Fix and The Last of a Dying Breed are now starting to make more sense. His Geto Boys transition from absolute classic “Mind Playing Tricks On Me” on the Geto Boys’ We Can’t Be Stopped to modern day fare “Yes Yes Yall” and “G-Code” show that Face really hasn’t lost a beat, or more importantly, slowed down in his fine age. The man is still capable of classics. One of the only, if the only, album this side of 50 Cent’s Get Rich or Die Tryin to be labeled classic into this new century is Face’s latest The Fix. With The Fix, Face proved to be the George Foreman amongst champs, keeping up with superlyrical middleweights Jay-Z for “Guess Whos Back” and Nas on “In Between Us,” which is significantly absent here. “In Cold Blood,” “Smartz” with Devin the Dude, and “Gangsta” are other recent bangers, while “On My Block” didn’t make the cut. To be fair to DJ Roz, you’d pretty much have to make a box set of mixtapes to relish all of Scarface’s finest material. That said a track like the “Sunshine (Remix)” with Anthony Hamilton is really trying to be too cute, and easily out of place when the original version with hip-hop violinist Miri Ben-Ari is the one that people really adore. As for The Last of a Dying Bread, sleepers such as the Erick Sermon-laced banger “It Ain’t Pt. 2” and the damn-they-did-that “Get Out” with Jay-Z will have you caught up. The slept-on Balls and My Word additions “Recognize” and “On My Grind” are real treats. Scarface’s career hadn’t always been a smooth ride, illustrated by the double-album trend on My Homies in 1998 that took sub-par results. No better example would be to include a lone dishing of those 30-tracks in the remaining ditchem-and-disgustem anthem, “Fuck Faces,” with naughty legends Devin and Too $hort. “Homies and Thuggs” with Master P would’ve been a better choice, thus proving who The Last Don. Another question mark appears on The Untouchable’s additions, including the title-track, “Southside,” “Faith,” and “Money Makes the World Go Round” with Devin; them’s is classics, fa sho, but how ya gon forget the one song that rose Scarface back from Rap-A-Lot obscurity and 2Pac back to the masses in “Smile”? Man, that video put tears in faces for years. Again, DJ Roz never claimed The Last Don to be a greatest hits mixtape; then again, what is it? Why are there so many Best Of’s? Why do I even review them? Don’t ask. If only Mr. Scarface Is Back’s drum-marching black power anthem “Born Killer,” The Diary’s vulgar-packin’ “Jesse James” and chilling “I Seen a Man Die,” and no tracks from arguably his greatest Scarface CD in World Is Yours remains here, then perhaps this is not a greatest hits at all. While reminiscing with all “Geto Boyz & Girlz” (C.M.W.’s “N 2 Deep” also appears), we reflect back onto the claim of Face not changing a damn bit. Well he has, but much more in the Nas sense, where Scarface has only gone through revolution periods—can’t keep taking bodies to the morgue this late in life ya know—not so much as changing for commercial masses, but only in terms of reinventing himself. To sell millions of records and remain a staple and perhaps American Idol to all those who come after in the Dirty South, here’s to you Brad Jordan, for proving that decree of The Last Don was no easy feat.

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