Crunk Rock

Album Review

Five years in the making — and for all the wrong reasons — Lil Jon's Crunk Rock isn't the crunk-meets-rock collection originally promised. Instead, it's a scattershot set of tracks that just barely fit together, but take into consideration the label problems and legal issues the producer has faced since the album's conception and it becomes a scruffy mess you just might cheer on. Come at it from the return-to-form sleaze angle and you can mark the “so creamy” “Ms Chocolate” with R. Kelly and the ridiculously raw “Ride da D” with the Ying Yang Twins as winners, and maybe even “G Walk,” which finds the previously presentable Soulja Boy spitting “I gave your girl a hug and she got wetter than a tub” over a hulking Shawty Redd beat. Look for a genre-mashing, very 2010 effort from slick ringleader Jon and there's the reggae-fied “On de Grind” with the Marley Brothers, or the freaky robot-dance “Get in Get Out” with producer Laidback Luke at the controls. As far as Jon's own productions, “Killas” is the gorilla-grinding example of the album's original concept as Ice Cube, Game, and Elephant Man lock and load over lurching guitars. The unholy marriage of crunk and frat-electro is less successful but amusing as Jon loans his “Heeeeyyy!”s and “Yeaaaaahhhhh!”s to what are essentially LMFAO and 3OH!3 cuts. It's a shame that desirable, early promo singles like “Snap Yo Fingers” or “Act a Fool” didn't survive the bankruptcy hearings of Jon's previous label, but as far as albums rescued from lawyers go, Crunk Rock deserves a “Heeeyyy!” and a couple “Yeaaahhhhh!”s to boot.