Rating: NNN
The big spin on Reality Check is that it’s Juve’s first record since losing everything in Katrina, a tragedy the New Orleans resident deals with on just one track, Get Ya Hustle On. It’s a nihilistic sort of fuck-the-world, deal-with-it, do-for-self anthem by the man who first told you to back that ass up. After dissing FEMA and the city’s mayor, he shrugs and spits in a voice sounding resigned and fortified by suffering, “Life is up and down and side to side like a centipede.” The overall candour’s arresting, and the spirit continues over the album’s high-budget beats (Jazz-E, Cool & Dre, and Scott Storch bring car wax-slick synth-riddled beats). It’s like after the flood and so much beefing with Cash Money, he gives less of a fuck than ever the disses, even the sex raps (the breathy, snap-rap-ish Come Out Your Laundry, sounding like The Whisper Song mixed with What It Is), are more aggressive and tempered by urgency.