The Recession (Bonus Track Version)

iTunes Review

Young Jeezy’s third album, The Recession, is an exorcism, a confessional, a forebodement. Anything but a celebration. Let's Get It: Thug Motivation 101 was nothing short of a bombastic rap opera about crack distribution and positive cash flow, but three years after Jeezy’s debut, the economy has dried up, the country is under a black cloud, and now even Jeezy is having trouble keeping his head up. “And I ain't never tried this s***, imagine how that white feel / But that don't even matter though, trying to pay the light bill / Light bill, phone bill, plus my granny nerve pills / Feel like I should be takin' ‘em, imagine how my nerves feel” (from “Crazy World”). You know things are tough when Jeezy begins to doubt his own dreams of Scarface-style grandeur. The usual team of producers (Drumma Boy, J.U.S.T.I.C.E. League, Shawty Redd) provide the usual wall of synths, but there is something forlorn beneath the frenzy, especially on “Everything” and “Amazin’.” Imbued with nightmares, stress, and paranoia, The Recession is an album of its era, a rap time capsule of America in the twilight of the Bush years.