dem franchize boyz on top of our game zip

Dem Franchize Boyz On Top Of Our Game Zip Full Volume Without

And when a new trend emerges in hip-hop, Jermaine Dupri will always rip it off egregiously.

This last rule applies to Dem Franchize Boyz, an Atlanta-based group that represents Mr.

Dupris latest business interest.

The new album starts out with a Pimp C sample: Make my music for the boyz with the Os, the old-school pros and the strip club hoes, But in this case, the legendary Mr.

Butler forgot to add, for the Harvard freshman doing the white mans overbite, furiously getting crunk in front of his mirror, jumping up and down and well, you get the idea.

In accordance with our guilty pleasures issue, I want to espouse the virtues of Dem Franchize Boyz and their second album, On Top Of Our Game.

Dupri, the Boyz, D4L (whose Laffy Taffy blew up all over the country and whose cheap, minimalist sound precipitated the formation of this group), et al.

Dem Franchize Boyz On Top Of Our Game Zip Full Volume Without

This is the kind of music that you say you hate, but which secretly you wish you could play at full volume without fear of being smacked.

Assemble a crew of faceless rappers, choruses of You know what it is, ho(16x), three strokes on a keyboard and youve got a club hit.

Repeat it 12 times, and youve got a follow-up album for one of Atlantas worst-spelling crews.

Drenched in drawl and intentionally uneven overdubs, the album is a smartly assembled piece of Southern pop-rap.

All of the tracks are the same tempo, but they prevent boredom by keeping it short-its only 12 songs.

Jermaine Dupri keeps his garbage Diddy-esque cameos to a minimum.

The fact is, when one of the four Boyz says, Im the best there ever was, its tongue-in-cheek; he follows that with We gotta keep this thing goin, as long as we can.

The light-hearted, by-the-books way this album plays out ends up better than one would expect.

These rappers are barely out of their teen years, with a record deal, a hit single, and a mic.

Screaming Oh I Think They Like Me over and over again is only natural.

Furthermore, we only have ourselves to blame for this kind of material lacking artistic merit.

We all bought Lil Jons and Mike Jones albums, and we have to pay the price for all the crunk copycats that follow in their wake.

Sometimes they are good (Dem Franchize Boyz), and sometimes they are bad (also Dem Franchize Boyz, depending on your state of mind).

The best part of this album is that its all been heard before.

With the possible exception of (Bitch) Stop Calling Me (which is a very chivalrous follow-up to the nasty As Freaky As She Wanna Be) The Boyz do absolutely nothing to expand the vocabulary or widen the horizons of hip-hop in the slightest bit.

After all, the most musically adventurous track is called Ridin Rims.

And thats just fine.

The deep-fried keyboards, the sweat-drenched white tees and open-top convertibles of Jizzal Man, Parlae, Pimpin and Buddie are exactly what I need in this freezing weather.