West Coast rap elder
Ice Cube's 11th studio album,
Man Down, is a nostalgic ride through familiar but welcome sounds, lyrical themes, and the unfiltered gangster personality
Cube's been giving us since the dawn of gangsta rap. The drums bump, the bass is wobbly, and the high-end synth melodies soar in the classic G-funk production style, especially on tracks like "It's My Ego" or the sauntering groove of "So Sensitive." Soul samples get flipped on "Not Like Them," and
Cube approaches the mic with the same steady, self-assured flow and cautionary perspective he's been using since before
Death Certificate. He's showing his age a bit with lyrics bemoaning smartphones and the kids these days, but he's still a powerful rapper, if a decidedly old-school player. Other familiar faces from the golden age of hip-hop show up as
Man Down plays out, with appearances from
B-Real,
Too $hort,
Snoop Dogg,
E-40, and others.
Cube doesn't attempt too many new tricks here, and that's probably for the best. The album is a warm, musically ornamented revisitation of the rapper's '90s heyday, with more hits than misses and never so much nostalgia that it feels completely stuck in the past. ~ TiVo Staff
