The Elephant in the Room [Edited] [PA]

Performer: Fat Joe
Artist: Dre; Plies; Lil Wayne; Jackie Rubio; Poo Bear; Swizz Beatz; J. Holiday; Opera Steve; KRS-One
Producer: Scott Storch
Distributor: EMI Music Distribution

Notes: On his eighth solo joint, the Bronx native keeps one foot in the street and one in the club. Featuring a variety of production styles that move between hardcore New York street-hop, commercial dance-floor bangers, R&B-influenced radio appeal, and hyped-up Dirty South crunk, THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM has something for hip-hop heads of all persuasions. Lyrically, Don Cartegena seems to have mastered his niche as he composes decadent, Colombian-powdered party scenarios and treacherous street-life vignettes. The one-two Bronx combo of Joe and KRS has always worked, and a compelling, Alchemist-produced inner dialogue track is the album's gem. THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM features beats courtesy of Street Runner, Cool & Dre, Danja, Scott Storch, and DJ Premier, as well as guest appearances from Lil Wayne, Plies, Pooh Bear, Opera Steve, J. Holiday, and the above-mentioned KRS-One. If the title The Elephant in the Room represents anything, it's Fat Joe's solid and reliable talent. It can't refer to the rapper himself because the man gets press by the pallet, but if you sift through all the beef talk and the chump accusations you'll have a hard time matching it up with his output. Objectively, he's never embarrassed himself, and the behemoth-sized boasts he makes are all over gangsta rap, yet rarely backed up by the number of gold records Joe has on his wall. He's a survivor, a smart captain with prot�g�s Terror Squad and DJ Khaled his crowning achievements, and for all these things he deserves respect. What's fascinating about The Elephant in the Room is that it doesn't hunger for adoration or accolades but it obsesses on acknowledgement, the lack of which puts an all-day knot in Joe's stomach. Rather than rely on the one or two quick-witted jabs he usually drops in a verse, here the rapper uses a slowly corrosive approach and wears down all enemies with a slower but ever so steady grind. Violent imagery is important to get the job done, and when the visceral highlight "300 Brolic" decides killing your mom wasn't enough, it offers "I am a professional/I will cut your testicles/Stuff 'em in your mouth where them li'l shits belong." Joe's driven enough that he actually breaks away from his usual monotone delivery and makes "Bumpin' that Kanye/You can't tell me nuthin' riiiiiiiiight?" a layered lyric through his snarky, indignant inflection. The few radio-friendly numbers included somehow work in this environment, with the J. Holiday collaboration "I Won't Tell" bringing especially sweet relief. Towering above it all is "My Conscience," where KRS-One plays the supportive angel on Joe's shoulder and offers "You was with Relativity/I was with Jive/All that bullshit you been through/How'd you survive," both a hip-hop history and frame of reference. Where Elephant falls off is with all the excessive cocaine talk -- which just seems to be taking away from the matter at hand -- plus the star-studded list of producers -- the Alchemist, Scott Storch, Swizz Beatz -- and their failure to match the rapper's enthusiasm. Still, Joe warns the listener right at the beginning that he's more Eazy-E than Ice Cube -- and for three-fourths of the album, he's spot on. ~ David Jeffries

Vibe (p.78) - "The nexus of what Fat Joe embodies comes on 'That White,' bubbling with DJ Premier's chopped strings, that mandatory fourth-bar freak, and a scratched-in Young Jeezy exhortation."

Bronx-born MC Fat Joe Da Gangsta parlayed his notoriety as a graffiti writer into a lucrative and influential career as an MC and hip-hop impresario. One of the first east coast MCs to rhyme unapologetically about the harsh realities of the hustla's life, Fat Joe gained a considerable amount of underground respect in the mid-1990s. But mega-success would come later as leader of the Terror Squad--featuring his equally stout prot�g� the late Big Pun--and again via his smash duet with Ashanti, 2002's "What's Love?" Representing the Puerto Rican voice in hip-hop, Fat Joe has been a major supporter of that community's reggaeton movement, which broke into the mainstream in the early 2000s.

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