Ghetto's Tryin to Kill Me

This is the first Master P solo record, from back when his home base was Richmond, California--just a hop, skip, and jump from Oakland's trunk funk. As such, it plays like a selection from the lost Too $hort tapes. Slow, heavy bass, mystic whistles, and gratuitous grunts pepper the album as P retells standard tales of pimp and gangster life. Despite the declaration on "Hands of a Dead Man" that "most blacks, they don't know about politics," there's little teaching here. On the very next track, "211," the chorus repeats with no emotion whatsoever, "We needed cash, we robbed the liquor store." Here, keeping it real rarely means keeping it right. --Jon Caramanica