Robert Christgau: Dean of American Rock Critics

Consumer Guide:
  User's Guide
  Grades 1990-
  Grades 1969-89
  And It Don't Stop
Books:
  Book Reports
  Is It Still Good to Ya?
  Going Into the City
  Consumer Guide: 90s
  Grown Up All Wrong
  Consumer Guide: 80s
  Consumer Guide: 70s
  Any Old Way You Choose It
  Don't Stop 'til You Get Enough
Xgau Sez
Writings:
  And It Don't Stop
  CG Columns
  Rock&Roll& [new]
  Rock&Roll& [old]
  Music Essays
  Music Reviews
  Book Reviews
  NAJP Blog
  Playboy
  Blender
  Rolling Stone
  Billboard
  Video Reviews
  Pazz & Jop
  Recyclables
  Newsprint
  Lists
  Miscellany
Bibliography
NPR
Web Site:
  Home
  Site Map
  Contact
  What's New?
    RSS
Social Media:
  Substack
  Bluesky
  [Twitter]
Carola Dibbell:
  Carola's Website
  Archive
CG Search:
Google Search:

Fat Joe

  • Don Cartagena [Mystic/Big Beat/Atlantic, 1998] C+

Consumer Guide Reviews:

Don Cartagena [Mystic/Big Beat/Atlantic, 1998]
Promising "the best in hardcore hip hop," the former work boy and bus robber wants to show up the--what was that again, let me check my notes--"fake niggas" who are ripping off his former lifestyle. So he orders plenty murders and disrespects plenty hos (as opposed to "intelligent, civilized divas") before proceeding to the usual violin-drenched do-what-I-say-not-what-I-did--aimed, he says, at "the drug-dealin', thug-ass motherfuckin' niggas listening to Fat Joe." And though Noreaga's cameo sounds as soulful as Otis Redding by comparison, I believe Joe is more enlightened than some of these citizens. I also believe the rest of us can happily live without him. C+