The follow-up to
B.G.'s breakthrough album (
Chopper City in the Ghetto, 1999),
Checkmate is a more experimental effort that is fitfully entertaining. In particular, Cash Money in-house producer
Mannie Fresh pushes himself to come up with a fresh sound (e.g., "Bounce with Me"), which is good news, since by this point in time he'd been churning out beats in an assembly-line manner for several years for the numerous artists releasing albums annually on the label.
B.G. sounds less fresh here, rapping as he generally does, but he is given a lot more solo space on
Checkmate as guest features are kept to a relative minimum. There are some standout tracks on
Checkmate, most notably "I Know" and "Hennessy & XTC," though nothing rivals the highlights of
Chopper City in the Ghetto, which had been a stronger effort overall, if somewhat generic in retrospect. ~ Jason Birchmeier