Fat Jack

The idea of Fat Jack releasing a compilation-style record featuring his Mass Men crew (with a few other associated guests thrown in, just in case) was an instant interest grabber. After all, Mass Men is home to some of the best artists on the West Coast, including Aceyalone, All Deadly Jizzm, P.E.A.C.E., Abstract Rude and AWOL One. Fat Jack represented on the highly anticipated double-CD project by producing all of the tracks. And therein lies both of the problems — an unnecessary double-CD and sometimes poor production. When Fat Jack is in top form he creates some fabulous beats, but at other times he creates some music that is just down right painful to listen to. In many situations that would be fine; just put the tracks that sound good onto the album. What makes matters even worse is that each artist has two tracks over the two discs of Cater To The DJ and in most cases one song shines while the other doesn’t. Fat Jack would have been better served by choosing the best song from each artist and including it on only one disc. A few emcees represent with songs that really do deserve to be heard: P.E.A.C.E. (“I Don’t Gang Bang”), Smooth 7 (“For The Love Of Hip Hop”), AWOL One (“For Me?”), Phoenix Orion (“How Many?”) and Aceyalone (“Golden Mic”). Mass Men are a phenomenal crew of talented artists; it’s just too bad that Cater To The DJ doesn’t better represent that skill.