Yahoo! Music Album Review

Released on 15/09/08
Label: Island

For his fifth album in eight years, Nelly…does what he's always done. Let's not pretend otherwise: "Brass Knuckles" is an identikit album designed to sell to all those who bought "Southpaw Grammar", "Nellyville" and the simultaneous "Sweat"/"Suit" releases. Opener "I Ain't Him" storms in with a jittery line that's almost as old school as Nelly promises - just as long as you think hip-hop started in 1998. It sounds good, is Southern hip-pop (we say that because this is nowhere near as hard as he probably thinks it is) to a T, and sets up the run of opening tracks that make "Brass Knuckles" immediately infectious if your capacity for not-quite-sledgehammer beats and chants is relatively high.

Across the full 62 minutes, however, even those listeners with high thresholds will have trouble suspending their reservations. As much as you'll no doubt hear any one of these tracks played in your local Destiny, Zanzibar, Oceana, or any other chain club across town, you'll also be listening to a fire alarm signalling the rut that much modern hip-hop has become stuck in. Sex and violence sells, and it's put across most ludicrously by the caricature personas adopted by Cornell "Nelly" Haynes Jr. and Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson.

Unlike back in the late 80s, when rap was "CNN for black people" and NWA bought into the life, Nelly and co have well and truly bought into the modern day business of hip-hop. It's all harmless fun, apart from on awkward boasts where "Some call me Dennis, 'cause my rod, man, diggin' in, leave 'em all screaming out" are coupled with "You know what I like, don't put up a fight". It sounds worryingly close to sexual assault to these ears.

The guest appearances see this aiming for the widest demographic possible: Snoop Dogg (West coast), Chuck D (East coast, "conscientious" hip-hop, unsurprisingly featuring on the most old school, soul-sampling track, "Self-Esteem"), Fergie (idiots). Swamping almost all of Nelly's own contributions, radio pluggers are going to run themselves ragged trying to a zillion stations to take on at least one of the 15 songs. Maximum airplay: that's the key, and it's likely to get it.

Compared to the harder, more electro direction hip-hop's taken in recent years, however, Nelly - whose previous two albums, "Sweat" and "Suit", occupied the top two spots in the US charts when simultaneously released almost four years to the day before "Brass Knuckles" - has steadfastly remained the same; undeniably smooth-running, he's hooked into what sells for him. Airplay or not, however, he's also sounding seriously dated. Like a theme park souvenir, there are many others out there like this: cheap enough to break, attached to memories that aren't really your most formative.

    by Jason Draper