Some veteran hip-hop heads have expressed their concerns over the direction of hardcore rap in the late '90s and early 2000s. Their generalization is as follows: hardcore rap had more of a conscience in the '80s, and too much late-'90s/early-2000s rap just talks about bling-bling, fast cars, player haters, gats, thugs, blunts, bitches, hoes, and hotties with big booties. But truth be told, rap has room for positive, uplifting MCs (
the Roots,
Common,
Blackalicious) as well as rhymers who specialize in raunchy, explicit, over-the-top entertainment (
Eminem,
Too $hort).
Archie Eversole's debut album,
Ride Wit Me Dirty South Style, usually falls into the latter category. The Atlanta-based rapper, who was only 17 when he recorded this CD, occasionally addresses sociopolitical concerns in a serious manner -- on the disturbing "Why Me,"
Eversole expresses the desperation of a ghetto teenager who wonders why he has to grow up in such a dangerous, unsafe environment. But most of the time,
Ride Wit Me Dirty South Style isn't an album that is trying to save the world -- this disc isn't trying to be
Public Enemy's
It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back,
Boogie Down Productions' By All Means Necessary, or even
Ice-T's
Power (which used thug life imagery to warn ghetto kids that crime is a dead end). Most of the time,
Eversole's album is a stereotypical Dirty South effort that inundates listeners with the usual gangsta clichés and sex-and-violence themes. This is hardly the most original or innovative release in the world -- there are countless Dirty South rappers doing this type of thing -- but the beats are generally infectious and
Eversole comes up with some catchy hooks here and there. Although not a masterpiece,
Ride Wit Me Dirty South Style is an entertaining, if uneven and derivative, example of southern hardcore rap. ~ Alex Henderson