Idolator

Your "I just listened to this three times" review of the new LL Cool J single: It's hard to imagine even the weakest link the Diplomats chain scribbling a title as rote as "New York Gangsters" on a CD-R demo, though they could have easily penned the trite (but "gritty"!) street-reminiscence lyrics, which are so un-LL (especially latter day lothario LL) as to be bizarre and awkward. And not in a cute way, more like your slick playboy dad suddenly chatting up your girlfriend in the voice of a third-string mixtape rapper during dessert: "I learned if you talk too much you get your ass shot up/ Follow your dreams, watch the cash pile up."

Now I am wearing a lime green Radio shirt right now, but even I can admit that LL's not insignifigant tendencies toward lameness have typically manifested when he wants to prove that he's so sincere in his greasy attempts to sex you up. And even "Doin It" (to say nothing of "Big Ole Butt") was kinda witty compared to this string of recycled gangsta-lite "real talk" designed to show up new school punks half his age while accidentally showing up his own mid-life crisis. Even with the murky, ripped-stream quality of the MP3, the beat's okay in a circa-'03 Kanye vein, but the sampled soul hook is sunk by LL's spoken instrusions to reassure us that he's still wealthy.

All that kvetched about, I'd still take it over another J-Lo collaboration.

LL Cool J - "New York Gangsters [Nah Right]