G-Unit - 'T.O.S: Terminate On Sight' (Interscope / G-Unit) Released 30/06/08

One set back that does hinder the album’s appeal is the lack of wordplay from 50’s right hand man Tony Yayo. He works well on the occasional track but his talent lies in shit talking and hyping up audiences. Some of his included verses sound like readings from the little book of bling. They easily bore you with the same talk of, ‘my ice this’ and ‘my girl does that’. There’s even a version of the album floating around the internet where all of Yayo’s lyrics have been removed so you can enjoy the album without him. Picking up the slack however is Blue Hefner, known to his fans as Lloyd Banks. After going through a bad patch musically, due mainly in part to having to look after his sick mother, the man with more words than the English Dictionary drops some of his hottest lines yet. On the album’s title track he spits rapidly, “Everything was slow motion but I think I got the potion/ ‘Cos now that they overdosing all my doors are back open, and my Cadillac toting/ Nigga play with me I smoke ‘em/ Murder, what what! 434 is where I’m from.” His flow just sounds ridiculous. Even when he raps with no major subject matter in hand he still manages to impress you. 50 drops some killer bars here and there, as does, the now ex-member of G-Unit, Young Buck, but it’s Banks who steals the limelight on this one.

Loyalty is a trait a lot of music fans find hard to stick with, especially if their favourite artist makes one bad album. In this day and age fans are fickle. When 50, Banks, The Game, Buck, Whoo Kid and Yayo first dropped back in the early part of the millennium everybody and their Grandmother were fixated with them, but as soon as a new artist, who they deem to be more gangsta or more hood, comes along all love is lost. While G-Unit might have lost the spark they originally started with, they’re still the same guys that dropped ‘Stunt 101’, ‘In Da Club’ and ‘Warrior’. They’re still the same guys that Dr. Dre, one of the greatest producers of all time, and Eminem, one of the greatest lyricists of all time, took a chance on. No one can deny that times change, it’s a natural process. But stop hating and start appreciating. ‘T*O*S’ is a street album for those who just want to nod their head to some knocking beats and listen to some thuggish words of wisdom.