Fat Joe – All Or Nothing?

It Ain’t Over ‘Til The Fat Man Sings

Fat Joe’s All or Nothing, while offering a few club bangers, is an absolute failure. Relying mainly on his criminal reputation, Joe truly makes a mockery of rap music with some of the weakest lyrics ever put on wax. His delivery is unoriginal and his subject matter is uninspired that even his reputation as one of the truest “gangsta” personas in hip-hop and a number of top tier producers can’t save this album. As All or Nothing progresses, lines like “they even warn the kids in school that coke kills, crack!” fail to evoke more than a sarcastic chuckle. The drug dealing tales and thug love anthems do the production of Just Blaze, Scott Storch,, and Timbaland little justice as Joe laces track after track with unbearable hooks and lame punchlines. In “My FoFo,” his retort of 50 Cent’s infamous “Piggy Bank,” Joe borrows the melody of The Flintstones theme song to create one of the most annoying choruses ever recorded.

More disturbing than the incessantly irritating hooks and superficial themes is the fact that the best verse on the album is one of the worst lyrical performances of Eminem’s career. In the Lil’ Jon remix of Fat Joe’s successful summer anthem, “Lean Back,” Eminem’s mockingly slurred delivery puts Joe’s entire arsenal of lyrics to shame in less than thirty seconds.

All or Nothing offers little more than a few good beats and a couple good laughs as Fat Joe repeats “it’s cooked coke, crack!” in one too many songs. And if that’s not bad enough, did I mention the duet with J-Lo?