Review Summary: A hot, steaming pile of shit
By 1997 gangsta rap had become so watered down and comical that it was a miracle its existance was still acknowledged. Biggie and Tupac were gone, G-funk had totally fallen out of style, and even the East Coast hardcore movement was stalling. It seemed all that was left in mainstream hip-hop was P. Diddy's horrific pop-gangsta hybrid which had totally taken over the airwaves. But another individual was looking to cash in on a new bastardized version of gangsta rap as well. This man was an individual by the name of Percy "Master P" Miller, founder of the No Limit Records company and responsible for the abomination known as Ghetto D, his 6th release. Conceived within the deepest, darkest chambers of Satan's dungeons, Ghetto D to this day stands out as the pinnacle for unoriginal, atrocious rap music. Copies of this record will be floating through the river Charon along with Soulja Boy's whole discography and that new Queensryche record.
Since I haven't mentioned it before, it should be known that Master P stands out as one of the most terrible lyricists of his age, his lyrical topics hardly touching on anything else but the ever-so-hardly used subjects of weed, drug dealing, bitches, money and beating up other niggas for the heck of it. His voice can be described as a mixture between Ol' Dirty Bastard and a half-retarded cow, however lacking any sort of Ol' Dirty's badassness (is that even a word?) or humor. Then of course we have the whole No Limit crew coming in to back up their wonderful leader, filling in each song with copious amounts of guest appearences from rappers who make Wiz Khalifa sound like the second coming of Nas. Silkk the Shocker? Big Ed? Mystikal? I bet my left nut that P handpicked a bunch of dudes off the street and thrust them into a room filled stacks of money and endless bitches under the promise they contribute to P's plan of spreading ear cancer to the mainstream music public. But honestly, this record starts off pretty decently with the bumpin' bassline and interpolation of "Eric B. Is President" found in the title track, which has Master P somewhat clumsily explaining how to make crack cocaine. It is one of the only spots on the album where things seem to work, and P and his revolving door of cronies seem to have some sense of rapping over a beat. However, any sense of decency that you expected from this record begins to disappear when the horrific chorus of "Let's Get Em" gets thrusted into your ears like a rusty kitchen knife. Master P then proceeds to enter the beat with the grace of a lobotimized rhinoceros and we are treated to the very first of many horrific songs that make up this album.
In one way, Master P is a musical genius. Why you may ask? Well, I don't think the rap game has seen anyone as proficient as him when it comes to totally ripping off the styles of other artists. Of course we have the obligatory ode to dead homies song and Bone Thugs ripoff "I Miss My Homies", which sounds like the kind of song you'd hear some drunk bastard attempting to sing on karaoke night at his local bar. And then there's the classic "I'm totally gonna copy Tupac but add a Master P twist" track "We Riders". Who knows what would've happened if Pac had heard this song while he was still alive, but P takes the oppurtunity created by Pac's death and takes a massive *** on his legacy with this atrocity. P manages to copy Pac's flow blow for blow, and any Tupac fan will instantly notice this karoake attempt at sounding like Pac. And to add insult to injury, P manages to take another chunk out of the Tupac legacy with the song title itself. Hmm I wonder Master P, when did Tupac ever talk about a being a "straight ridah"? Then there's also a couple half-ass attempts at replicating Dr. Dre's signature G-funk on tracks like "Weed and Money" and "Captain Kirk" , the latter of which has a chorus that makes "Let's Get Em" sound like "Big Poppa" in comparison. However we still haven't reached the darkest, worst part of Ghetto D, and to this piece of ear cancer I feel the need to devote a whole paragraph to.
UGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. That horrific sound which could be found on certain occasions earlier in the album isn't the sound of ducks getting anally probed by aliens as you and I might've thought, but in fact Master P himself. As a matter of fact, those earlier UGHHHHHHHs were the echos of the deformed living mass known as "Make Em' Say Ugh", which we have finally reached on our journey through the perilous Ghetto D. Horrible music tends to make an impact on you the first time you listen to it. I vividly remember my first time hearing Rebecca Black and grinding my teeth in disgust, and even the time I first listened to that god-awful 4 Non Blondes song, you know, the one with the vocals that prompted me to teabag a juice blender? Well, my first experience with "Make Em' Say Ugh" wasn't any better. It is absolutely confounding that this song became one of the most popular of its generation, and speaks volumes of the lengths we will go to supply ourselves with entertainment. Boasting perhaps the most suicide provoking chorus of all time, Master P finds the need to moan UGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH in every living second of the song as if he people didn't understand that he wants them to moan like Elvis on his death toilet. Combine this with a typical P lyrical performance and yet another appearence from that asshole Silkk the Shocker and you have perhaps the most painstakingly impossible song to listen to beginning to end. It is scientifically proven that extended exposure to "Make Em' Say Ugh' will result in permanant mental illness, and result in the moaning of UGHHHHHHHHHHHHH while having difficult times on the toilet.
After navigating around the treacherous beast of "Make Em' Say Ugh", a painful realization will come to the brave listener: there's still 7 more songs of this ***. Of course, being the innovator he is, Master P doesn't waste his time on skits and interludes and such like most normal hip-hop artists do but instead finds the need to record 19 full length tracks bereft of any sort of flow you would associate with an album. P must've, "Nigga please, who gives a *** about how smoothly my album flows, as long I can give Silkk the Shocker as many guest verses as I can". That's nearly 80 minutes of pure unadulterated ***. 80 minutes. Why not just make a double album and divide the garbage into two servings, so the listener can have time to dial 911 in between albums and resume listening after returning home from the hospital after receiving emergency ear drum transplant? What seperates Ghetto D from a 1 to a 1.5 is that some tracks are actually listenable, and once in a blue moon P's cast of half-retarded producers manage to churn out decent beats like the title track, and "Pass Me Da Green". I believe BigHans trashed this album pretty good already, but after hearing "Make Em' Say Ugh" on the radio I found it necessary to make sure no one purchases this album ever again. So please do yourself a favor and avoid this atrocity whatever way you can.
