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Juve The Great
01/26/2004 10:00 PM, Yahoo! Music
Dan Leroy
Former Hot Boy Juvenile went from the penthouse (his ’98 Dirty South smash “Back That Azz Up”) to the outhouse, letting a financial dispute with Cash Money overshadow his increasingly weak releases. But just when all but the hip-hop diehards had given up on Juve, he unexpectedly reunited with Cash Money’s Baby and Mannie Fresh for this outing, then all but disavowed the results as a money grab. So naturally -- given that head-scratching prelude -- Juve The Great turns out to be nearly the equal of his one classic album, 400 Degreez, a clear statement that Juvenile’s no washed-up child star. Granted, a big reason for the turnaround has to do with the influence of Baby and Fresh, a.k.a. the Big Tymers; this collection is a carbon copy of the pair’s Number One set Hood Rich, with Fresh’s bullseye pop hooks and plenty of Blowfly-style humor to make the misogyny (see “Head In Advance” for a tutorial) slightly less reprehensible. Since Juvenile never had anything important to say anyway, playing for laughs not only makes it easier to appreciate his commanding N’Awlins drawl, it gets the autobiographical title track – a father-son story gone wrong – more attention than it probably deserves.
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