Throwback Thursday Review- Jermaine Dupri - Life in 1472

So last week's throwback was the first album by Puffy, let's look at this time in history a year later in 1998 when Jermaine Dupri, never to be left out decided to go ahead and put together his own full compilation. Known but always under appreciated, Jermaine was encouraged by both his artists and his own ambition to create "Life in 1472" this week's Throwback Thursday review.

The album has plenty of features and notable but somewhat understated are those of Nas on the opening track "Turn It Out" which I forgot was on the album and D-Dot the infamous producer and voice behind Bad Boy's infamous Madd Rapper on "Get Your Shit Right". Now Jermaine isn't a bad rapper most of the time but the Madd Rapper really goes in and does his thing with this character who was in the midst of taking on a life of his own.

The Big singles from the album were the Jay-Z assisted "Money Ain't a Thing" which was in heavy rotation and the super smash "Sweetheart" which was a collaboration with Mariah Carey. Another song that was released but never really took off was "Going Home With Me" which featured Keith Sweat on the hook and long time So So Def writer and artist Roc who never got the opportunity to do anything of his own while on the label. Yet this is one of my favorite songs with the catchy beat and hook and flows.

Now all isn't good, Mase and Lil Kim aren't terrible on "You Get Dealt With" but the fast raps on the uptempo bounce beat were different than the norm for the two but there was a pretty good reason, it just doesn't work well. "All That's Got to Go" isn't good at all. "Protector's of 1472" with Snoop and Warren G is better than I remember mostly because of Snoop but the production really feels out of place on the album. Yet "Three the Hard Way" with Roc and Mr. Black features the production you would expect to hear Snoop rapping on with a funk inspired track that also just feels like it's stuffed on to hit all of the regions. Roc raps pretty decent and shows his commercial viability.

"The Party Continues" with Da Brat and Usher was already a remixed single and it was cool. "Fresh" with Slick rick also isn't a bad listen. The main issue is that it is just a compilation of songs and favors called in for features. It worked pretty good back then but there was nothing that was really there to make it jell together so it becomes harder to judge because singles or those type of songs typically lose their lives more quickly than album cuts.


Rating: 3/5