Review Summary: Who is Mike Jones?! A TERRIBLE rapper from Houston, Texas, why do you want to know such a trivial fact?
Mike Jones is a regular Master P of this generation, without the gigantic entourage of even lesser rappers. In truth, Mike Jones is a genius of rap, but not in the sense that really makes music enjoyable. His first songs displayed that Mr. Jones was, in fact, a marketer of the truest sense. He posted his number and yelled his name whenever he could, just so every mind-fried MTV lover could understand that they were, in fact listening to Mike Jones. It was like having the title of the movie and the director pretended right above the action. To that extent, one can compare Mike Jones to a really really crappy movie with an awesome director and movie name; with people needing to be reminded of that name and director every minute of the duration, before they start to realize how crappy the film is.
The Voice, Mike Jones sophomore effort, shows that Mike Jones not only hasn't learned his lessons about actual rapping, but continues his marketing super-power ism to the point in which it's just sickening.
Fun fact: On
The Voice, Mike Jones says his name, on average, every 112 seconds. Which means you can’t go for two minutes, without hearing him awkwardly shout out his name, resulting in painful flinching. Listening to his alright voice and decent flow, you could see him being a good MC, but his severe lyrical deficiencies counter any hopes for this. With only one decent punchline dropped all album, “I’m number one, like Warren Moon,” Mike Jones usually resorts to rhyming the same words three times in a row (on a usual basis) and talking about his haters, the hot women he has, his candy paint, his skill, and his money in such a bland way it makes white rice look like a banana split. And not even his good beats can compensate for this. Despite being fairly basic (as seen by the A Milli copycat, Boi!), more often than not consisting of heavy bass, prevalent synths, consistent kicks, and some drum undertones. However, Mike Jones actually manages to be average when he has more complex beats like the piano-based Houston Oilers or soulful, mellow gospel of Grandma II. So other than a few exceptions, the beats are pretty status quo and unmemorable. So, when he doesn’t have great beats (which is most of the time) his HORRENDOUS lyrics manage to eat up all the positive aspects – good voice, decent flow, good beats – like a massive black hole.
To relate back to an earlier point in the review, Mike Jones certainly follows through the album in true Master P fashion; buzzing his name out multiple times while repeating meaningless catch phrases like a businessman does buzzwords. And to match with this meaninglessness of his rapping, his beats are absolutely unmemorable and worthless, just meshing into the synthesizer paradise that makes up the worst of mainstream rap.
The Voice is just another form of fuel for the rap bashers, all the 'haters' (oh god how I hate that term) who simply base their opinions on what foolish MTV and their friends say, and because of rappers like Plies, Rick Ross, and Mike Jones, the car could remain fueled for decades.
