Review Summary: Catch you in the jungle, I'm a boa constrictor, motha*****, Wanna' Snuggle?
Apathy is probably one of the most well known names in "underground hip-hop". From making cd's with AOTP and Demigodz to working with other artists, Apathy is a busy man. His second official solo album, Wanna' Snuggle?, had been worked on for a couple of years and wasn't finished up until third quarter 2009. It's received decent press too. The album isn't as good as people hype it up to be however, it has some great guest spots and above-average rapping throughout.
Apathy is one of a few emcee's who focuses his rhymes on lyrical complexity and wordplay but he can still tell a good story. He tells stories of being back in Los Angeles (Back In L.A.), how women aren't very trusting (Thinkin") and various other subjects. His lyrics are great and the content of the songs are too. He also some some pretty decent punchlines and metaphors on songs like
Shoot First and
Money Orientated. He proves himself to be one of the best rappers in the current state of hip-hop music. Apathy is a terrible producer though. He essentially comes off as a DJ Premier rip-off and his beats are boring and uninspired. The guest production is pretty solid though. Mike Shinoda makes a rock-tinged beat on "Shoot First" sound excellent and Teddy Roxpin proves to be a decent producer on two of the tracks. The guest spots range from awesome (B-Real, Celph Titled, Blue Raspberry, King Magnetic) to terribly bad(J-Live, Holly Brook). Most of them are hooks and really nothing special.
My main problem with the album is that it's 21 tracks. That means there's never really time for some great sounding songs to develop even further. There's about 8 tracks of filler on this and that starts around track 12. Wanna Snuggle? loses its luster halfway through and eventually picks up at the end. If Apathy had focused on making longer songs instead of songs that come across as freestyles this would have been better. Instead, he makes an album with a lot of filler and mostly uninspired beats. A semi-decent release, I'd recommend this to any Jedi Mind Tricks or Army Of The Pharaohs fan.
3/5
