Lloyd Banks - Rotten Apple

G-Unit / Interscope
What happened here? Seriously. I was a big fan of Banks; the mixtapes were standard listening for a good 6-8 month period of my life all those years ago. The Hunger For More wasn’t fantastic but I still liked it. There were some exceptionally good tracks on there.
Now it’s time for the sophomore [...]

G-Unit / Interscope

What happened here? Seriously. I was a big fan of Banks; the mixtapes were standard listening for a good 6-8 month period of my life all those years ago. The Hunger For More wasn’t fantastic but I still liked it. There were some exceptionally good tracks on there.

Now it’s time for the sophomore album, Rotten Apple. Like a lot of people, I have said in the past ‘I’ve pretty much given up on G-Unit, but I still wanna hear that new Banks’. It seemed to me that the future of G-Unit for fans like myself was resting on the slumped shoulders of Lloyd Banks.

So … hey man I don’t wanna write G-Unit off, but at the same time I don’t see someone with a name like Young Hot Rod saving the franchise either. 50’s a pop artist now, Yayo is garbage, Spider Loc is … well honestly who cares about Game’s last-minute replacement? Can Buck save the sinking ship?

But enough speculating about G-Unit. I’m reviewing an album here, not a crew. Problem is, I’ve heard this album five or six times now and still couldn’t tell you anything about it. There’s no particularly bad songs here at all, but there’s nothing that jumps out at you either. It’s all cookie-cutter modern hip hop, following the same familiar formula as previous G-Unit albums, only without Banks’ previously unmistakable personality. Are there quotables here? I couldn’t tell you. Every time I try to listen to this album I end up thinking about something else; sports, women, work, money … anything. This album can’t seem to hold my attention at all.

Playboy 2 flips the familiar flow Banks flipped on the original Playboy, which was a highlight on the previous album. This time around it’s just a decent track with a beat that can’t possibly touch the original. You Know The Deal looks enticing on paper; Banks and Rakim?! Crazy. Listen to the track and it’s another Banks track, with Rakim on (half of) the hook. That’s a fuckin outrage. You don’t go to Mercedes and buy a steering wheel for your Ford now do you?

I could go on but I’m getting bored listening to this album again while I review it. So many tracks end up sounding the same; the guests are the same old guys we hear on every other G-Unit album (50, Buck, Yayo, Mobb Deep) and the beats seem to float around the same slow bpm while Banks cruises by with his same lazy vocals.