The first thing you see – and the only thing you need to see – on the Cash Money website is a gigantic golden dollar sign. That’s it. The New Orleans-based label is so ostentatious in its freshly minted wealth it makes [a]Puff Daddy[/a] look like old money.
Out of this dynasty of flash child rappers, it’s inevitable that their oldest – a wizened 23 – and most established artist is called [a]Juvenile[/a]. As leader of Cash Money‘s superstar Hot Boys team (alongside 17-year-old proud father L’il Wayne), [a]Juvenile[/a] is ludicrously big in America right now. And listening to ‘Tha G Code’, it’s easy to see why: this is gangsta rap reduced to a point of utterly functional clichi, a low-cost, high-profit simplification of the G-funk formula run off a New Orleans production line.
[/I] – has a certain reductive neatness, of sorts.
It’s a hip-hop album so completely predictable in its attempts to offend, then, that it ends up sounding curiously inoffensive. Muthafucking average – but at least it pays the bills.