November 27, 2000
Let's Get Ready
Mystikal, as Peter Tosh once so aptly put it, is one sharp-steppin' razor.
Not so long back, Michael Buffer, the dude who does the calls to arms at all the big fights, threatened to sue System Of A Down for appropriating his lingo. Which would probably explain why Mystikal backed off on the full '...TO RUMBLE!' when he titled this album. Know one thing though: it's the only thing he's ever backed off from in his life.
'Let's Get Ready', Mystikal's fourth LP and his first Billboard chart-topper, is one wholesale fighting muthaf**ker, a full theatre of opportunities to offer the world outside. Women? Mystikal will take you down for one. Or, preferably, two. Reputation? Come see about him. Neighbourhood? You don't wanna go there... Mystikal is the fightingest bastard and his grin's never wider than when he's
putting the hurt on.
This is Joe Pesci in Casino transferred to New Orleans, bad attitude unleashed for pleasure and profit. So much more thug culture then, typical of the Dirty South sound that emerged from the man's ex-label, No Limit. Except 'Let's Get Ready' is a rather beautiful thing, in the way that a bruise can be beautiful. The man's voice, like a dark alley nightmare, is precisely the sound that a pit bull will make as it grips onto your throat. A growl more than a voice, really. Incredibly hard and incredibly sexy. And never more so than when it proffers its threat somewhat inappropriately, like on the James Brown get-on-the-baaad-foot fucked-up for the two-double-zeros US hit single 'Shake Ya Ass' ("Show me what you're working with", mmmm), the club-hustling 'Jump' and the pride of place soulster 'Family'.
Dressed up real purdy by the high-class likes of Outkast, The Neptunes, Da Brat and the Medicine Men, Mystikal, as Peter Tosh once so aptly put it, is one sharp-steppin' razor. Wu who? 9/10
You gotta problem with that?
Steve Sutherland
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