Review Summary: Dull, calculated, but technically proficient in both beats and lyrics - Jadakiss's third album falters in the same ways his last two albums have.
Jadakiss makes average hip hop that occasionally pushes the boundaries for decent quality radio rap, but also manages to make filler that wouldn’t fit on the worst rap album.
The Last Kiss is the final chapter of a series of mediocre rap albums by Jadakiss that have shown much potential from Jada’s lyricism, but his songwriting manages to fail him every step of the way. For every piece of art work like the dramatic street threats of “Pain & Torture” or the slick Mafioso raps on “Cartel Gathering”, we get by the numbers radio filler like the anti-faker anthem “Who’s Real” or dull R&B drivel stuck in the mid 00’s like “Grind Hard”. Jada tries too hard to shove his rap style into every fanbase, and instead of doing so effectively like the mid 90s Jay-Z, he falls unbearably flat with an incredibly inconsistent album.
The Last Kiss succeeds where hip hop album usually become ace for succeeding at, as it has both decent lyrics, flow and beats. Jadakiss’ flow isn’t outside of the realm of simple rhythmic talking, but it’s not exactly terrible, it works it’s around the beats, as if the beats were the sidewalk for his flow to walk across. The beats are pretty consistent, almost all synth-led, switching from menacing and dramatic to paint-by-numbers radio tracks, with the occasional Neptunes bounce that appears in tracks like “Rockin With the Best”. Along with this almost too precise flow and a decent ear for beats, his lyrics are slightly above average, rapping about generic topics, but occasionally dropping a fun punchline here and there, and although he does nothing that hasn’t been done by most rappers, there’s a certain charm about Jada that allows him to get away with it when his songs are perfected.
However what pains
The Last Kiss, as well as every Jadakiss album before it, is the fact his writing and his picking of guests is just horrible. Despite decent beats and good writing in a technical sense, the album just feels like another pitch patchy miss matched hip hop album that mixes lackluster and awesome material and it never comes together as a full record.
The Last Kiss is as recommended as anything else by Jadakiss has released - it isn’t really recommended at all. If you want average hip hop that aims for tall heights in a technical sense, trips over its own feet in inconsistency and cold nature.
