Welcome to J-Kwon's Hood Hop

If you don't know or remember the name J-Kwon, he was the rapper behind the famous song "Tipsy" back in 2004. J-Kwon is a rapper from St-Louis, who was expelled from his home at the age of 12 years old for dealing drugs. After being homeless by sleeping in cars and friends' houses, at the age of 17 years old, J-Kwon released his first album, "Hood Hop" under Jermaine Dupri's label, So So Def Recordings on April 6th 2004 and the album was almost entirely produced by Trackboyz. By listening to his album, will I understand what happened to J-Kwon and why was he a one-hit wonder, let's find out.

The intro of the album starts off with J-Kwon explaining why rappers spend their money to waste a good beat on the intro. He rather spend the money on a chain, weed or some dubs, but honestly he should have put more effort in the intro. "Hood Hop" is the first official song of the album. The instrumental of the song itself is very good, and it's a type of beat that makes you want to lift heavy weights at the gym and J-Kwon's flow sounds good as well. There's also a video for the song. It takes place in St-Louis and contains appearances from Jermaine Dupri, Daz Dillinger and Chingy. The following song is called "Tipsy" which is J-Kwon's biggest hit and it was # 2 on the Billboard charts. Good beat, good flow but average lyrics just like the first track, but overall it's a fun and good song if you don't pay attention to the lyrical content. Yet the number counting along the song, like "One, here comes the two to the three and four" can get annoying. This song also has a video, which takes place in J-Kwon's house, even if the song goes, "Everybody in the club get Tipsy", and contains appearances from Jermaine Dupri, Daz Dillinger, Murphy Lee and Da Brat. The next song is "IC IC" featuring The St-Lunatics. The song is basically about being a playa and smashing women. It's a good beat, and teaming up with Nelly, Murphy Lee and Ali made the song better. The following song is "Show Your Ass" featuring Eboni Eyes. It's a type of beat that after one minute or two, you can get bored, and after 5 songs, I feel J-Kwon is just speaking about the same thing, which is getting tipsy and have fun with girls. After this song, there's a skit called "Musty - Interlude I".

The 7th song of the album is a personal song from J-Kwon called "They Asked Me". J-Kwon raps about his struggle in life, being a dysfunctional teenager, having a daughter at 16 years old, problems with his parents, etc. The next song is "Underwear". This is a similar song to "Show Your Ass" and if you like catchy hooks, this song might be for you but the instrumental itself gets annoying. Following, is the song "Welcome To Tha Hood" which samples the song "Rockin' It" by The Fearless Four. This beat is better than the past song but the lyrical content is still average. At least this song is not about girls and alcohol, but about being strapped and watching your back in the hood, not that it's a good thing but the subject is different. The 10th song of the album is "U Ain't Gotta Like Me" featuring Big B. This is a good beat and it has the same content as "Welcome To Tha Hood". Then we have another skit called "Musty - Interlude II.

The 12th song of the album is "My Enemies" featuring Jermaine Dupri. The song has a good instrumental to it. "Parking Lot" has a hard instrumental just like Hood Hop but I felt J-Kwon was lazy on the hook. The next song is "You and Me" featuring Sadiyyah. I guess a rapper can't do an album without a love song. On this song, J-Kwon explains the situation between him and his baby mama. The last song of the album is "Morning Light". This might be the realest song from the album.

Now after listening to "Hood Hop", I do get why J-Kwon was a one hit-wonder. I felt that Jermaine Dupri found a young teenager playing basket-ball in high school and he made him entered the NBA with no guidance. Even if some of the songs had good instrumentals, J-Kwon did some C+ work on some A beats. Most of all the hooks in the album were repetitive, lazy and corny. However, J-Kwon did live the teenage dream, doing a rap album. Maybe back in 2004, at 15 years old, I would have like the album just for the vibe I guess. He did released other albums, such as Hood Hop 2 in February 17th 2009, Hood Hop 2.5 in July 28th 2009 and J-Kwon on March 23rd 2010, all under his label Hood Hop Music.

Album grade : 2.8/5

Favorite song of the album : Hood Hop

Least favorite song of the album : Underwear