| Product Summary | | Label: Universal Music Group | | UPC: 00044006337326 | | Release Date: 12/16/2003 | | Buy.com Sku: 60621549 | | Item#: MRT6QP | Format:  CD |
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(P) 2003 Roc-A-Fella Records, LLC
(C) 2003 Roc-A-Fella Records, LLC
| | After a three year hiatus from the rap game rife with personal struggle, Roc-A-FellaÞs golden boy has truly 'come of age.' At the tender age of twenty-five, Memphis Bleek - the first artist ever signed to the ROC and long known as Jay-Z's hand-picked prodigy - has already known success to the tune of two certified gold albums, 1999's Coming Of Age and 2000's The Understanding. With M.A.D.E., Bleek is back and ready to take his career to the next level with what is easily the most diverse, most personal, and strongest album of his already accomplished career. M-Easy's had plenty of reason to make it personal. While filming the third video for The Understanding in the fall of 2000, Bleek received word that his older brother Dre was involved in a near-fatal motorcycle accident in Miami. The young MC rushed to his brother's side, and put a halt to promoting his album and recording it's follow-up. "I realized I could do all the ballin' in the world, and that's cool, but it's really about family," Bleek recently told XXL Magazine. But Bleek would discover that that concept extended to his Roc-A-Fella family as well. In order to begin recording M.A.D.E. the ROCÞs head engineer Young Guru moved the entire operation, including super-producers Just Blaze and Kanye West, down to Miami to facilitate recording Bleek's album as he cared for his brother. The resulting record shows a mature, multi-faceted Bleek, whose range of lyrical subject matter has expanded by leaps and bounds. Packed with club-bangers and radio hits fans have come to expect from the Memph-man, the album includes the Just Blaze-produced first single "Everything's A Go" and introspective tracks like "My Life" and "Understand Me Still." Another outstanding track on M.A.D.E.,, "Hypnotic," finds Bleek, Jay-Z and Beanie Sigel in a cipher, trading sixteen's over a slow, funk-heavy groove thick with incense and blunt-smoke. "Give you the pen, the book, the word, the truth, the sight, the mind / I put it down, you call it a rhyme. I call it a sign / I predict the unpredictable. Heaven is invisible, but hell isnÞt physical" Bleek spits over flutes and heavy bass. Elsewhere, Donell Jones croons on "P.Y.T." and Trick Daddy brings his unique rhyme style to another Just Blaze banger , "Round Here." But make no mistake about it, Bleek is the star of this show. After three years away from the game, Roc-A-Fella's golden boy is back, and once again ready to elevate the game.
| | Album Notes and Credits |
Notes & Personnel Info |  | Personnel includes: Memphis Bleek, Freeway, Young Chris, Proof, Trick Daddy, Jay-Z, Donell Jones, Beanie Sigel, Latif, Nate Dogg, M.O.P., Rell, Lil, Cease, Geda K. | | Producers include: Just Blaze, Kanye West, T.T., E Bass, Art & Life. | | Recorded at Baseline Studios, New York, New York. | | Despite his longtime association with Jay-Z, the best and most popular rapper alive during the early 2000s, Memphis Bleek nonetheless continually struggled to overcome his prot?g? reputation and break through on his own, and his third album, M.A.D.E., again falls a bit short of that mark. Even so, it's a marked improvement for Bleek, a definite step forward and a sure showcase of his growing maturity. His first two albums, Coming of Age (1999) and Understanding (2000), had their moments, usually on the singles, but for the most part, they weren't lasting statements. If anything, they stated that Bleek was no Jay-Z and had a long way to go if he ever wanted to approach those heights. Then he dropped off for a while. In fact, it took him three years until he returned with M.A.D.E., which is longer than some less fortunate rappers' careers -- in other words, a short lifetime in rap years. But the time off seemingly served Bleek well. Throughout M.A.D.E., his flow is tighter than ever, he gets the best beats of his career, and he performs with ferocity on most songs: the opening run of "Everything's a Go" (with Jay-Z), "Round Here" (with Trick Daddy and T.I.), and "Just Blaze, Bleek & Free" (with Freeway) -- all of which are produced by Just Blaze -- get the album off to an astounding start. There's really nowhere to go but down from here, of course, but the remaining hour of music has its moments, albeit sporadic ones. In particular, Kanye West turns in a surprisingly straight interpolation of Michael Jackson's "P.Y.T." (titled "I Wanna Love U"), Scott Storch turns in a moody Dr. Dre-sounding production ("We Ballin'"), and Just Blaze turns in yet another hot track, a laid-back collabo with Beanie Sigel and Jay-Z ("Hypnotic"). In contrast, there are some fumbles, in particular a run-of-the-mill Nate Dogg duet that aims for "21 Questions" territory but misses. Taken as a whole, M.A.D.E. isn't the standup statement of purpose that Bleek needed to drop, especially after he spent three years on the down-low, but it's a noteworthy stride forward for the young rapper. Sure, a lot of the accolades should go out to Just Blaze, who carries the bulk of this album with his endlessly inventive productions, but Bleek deserves his share of props too. A lot of would-be critics wrote him off years prior, yet he soldiered on, held his composure, and returned with a sporadically great album. ~ Jason Birchmeier | | From the Scorsese-like voiceover intro referencing Memphis Bleek mentor Jay-Z's retirement from music and Bleek's initiation as a "made" Roc-A-Fella, this follow-up to 2000's UNDERSTANDING feels like the attempted anointing of a successor to the Godfather. Whether Bleek can fill Jay's shoes is a matter for conjecture, but on this showing he's got the chops and the ideas to make a respectable attempt. M.A.D.E. builds on the foundations of Bleek's previous two albums and shows increasing confidence on cuts such as the insistent "Everything's a Go" and the snaky "Murda Murda," with its hushed, urgent lyric. On this showing though, one thing's clear--Memphis Bleek is a rapper who's not about to desert his roots, no matter how big his future might be. |
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| | Technical Info | | Release Date : 12/16/2003 | | Original Release Date : 2003 | | Catalog ID : 0000322 | | Label : Roc-A-Fella Records (USA) | | Number of Discs : 1 | | Studio/Live : Studio | | Mono/Stereo : Stereo | | SPAR Code : n/a | | UPC : 00044006337326 |
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