Unleashed

Performer: Bow Wow (Rap)
Artist: Jagged Edge; Mario; Amerie; Baby
Distributor: Sony Music Distribution (

Notes: This is an Enhanced CD, which contains both regulaur audio tracks and multimedia computer files. Contains three untitled hidden tracks following "I'm Back". Initial pressings of UNLEASHED include a bonus track, entitled "I'm Back." Personnel: Bow Wow, Baby (rap vocals); Jagged Edge, Mario, Amerie (vocals); Bink! (various instruments, programming); Charles Pettaway (guitar). Producers include: The Neptunes, Swizz Beatz, Jazze Pha, Bink!, Jonathan Smith. As is the bar (or bat) mitzvah in the Jewish faith, so is the shedding of the Lil' in hip-hop culture, and so it is Lil' Bow Wow's time to ascend to manhood. The boy born Shad Moss in 1987 had a relatively good run of it in childhood, flowing flawlessly on stage with Snoop Dogg at age 6 (hence the name), and garnering two platinum records, numerous top 40 hits, and number one rap singles like "Bounce With Me." However, at 16, he now simply goes by Bow Wow and with the aptly named UNLEASHED, his third offering, he has quite the coming-out party. Bow Wow knows how to get a party started right with the grungy holla'in banger "Get It Poppin'" and the charged swingin' single "Let's Get Down." "Eighteen" courageously opens with a skit where the teenaged rapper gets id'ed and bounced at a club before he launches into an longingly aching anthem (even bemoaning to a potential girl how he can't get her into the clubs). Crooners Jagged Edge drop by as Bow Wow displays a most genuine sensitive side, like a slightly more vulnerable LL Cool J, on "My Baby." Overall, UNLEASHED stands a compelling chronicle of a prodigy MC coming of age.

Upon making his debut in 2000, Lil Bow Wow appeared as an unexpectedly popular adolescent rapper. Upon closer inspection, though, the young hip-hop upstart turned out to be produced and mentored by Jermaine Dupri, and the aforementioned debut BEWARE OF DOG featured a guest appearance by Snoop Dogg himself, after whom the younger canine is partially modeled. Parents of young hip-hop fans everywhere were relieved to find that Bow Wow entirely avoided both expletives and objectionable topics in his lyrics, instead favoring more of a good-time ethic descended straight from the tradition of the Jackson 5. Bow Wow's popularity extended to film and TV, as he appeared in ALL ABOUT THE BENJAMINS and on the MOESHA series.

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