White People

So...How's Your Girl?, was such an awesome album, so needless to say I, number one hip-hop fan, Coach Jim Tressel, had high expectations for Prince Paul and Dan the Automator's return with Handsome Boy Modeling School's sophomore release, White People. I gotta say, guys, the album seems a little forced. Kind of like going for it on 4th and 2 in the first quarter, but calling a full back dive from the Power-I. They're reaching for the stars but doing it, predictably, and with little innovation from where they left off. In other words, a large portion of the album is safe, bland, and self-indulgent, still it's in a way that only Dan the Automator and Co. can be safe, bland and self-indulgent. Another third is adequate, but what's left is some pretty good hip-hop, some phat beats and trick rhymes as the Tresster likes to put it. An appearance by Tim Medows, The Ladies Man, himself, is true to the playful tone of the first album, but it's not enough to make an album that can stand on it's own. Minus Del tha Funkee Homosapien and Casual, the rappers on White People sound too restrained, too self-aware.

The presense of a sometimes unlikely list of guest stars, from Jamie Column and Daryl Hall to Pharell Wiliams, makes the album an intriguing concept and perhaps a refreshing one-time listen, but Alas, White People fails to duplicate the genius and novelty of it's predesscor, and what's left is a collection of a few fun tracks, a lot of filler, and an album nowhere near as engaging as one would expect with such a list of talent with such proven track records.