Customer Reviews

One Man Band Man

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Most of us were all introduced to Swizz Beatz when we realized he was the one that produced DMX's banger "Ruff Ryders' Anthem" from his debut CD It's Dark and Hell Is Hot. The success of that track allowed Swizz to be able to produce 10 of the 16 tracks on DMX's 2nd CD Flesh of My Flesh, Blood of My Blood. a year later the Ruff Ryders, who consisted of DMX, The LOX, Eve, Drag-On and Swizzy himself amongst others released a compilation entitled Ryde or Die, Vol. 1. The best tracks ended up being "Ryde Or Die" which featured DMX, The LOX, Eve & Drag-On, "Jigga My _____" which was a Jay-Z solo track that was produced by Swizz Beatz, "Dope Money" which featured Jadakiss and Styles P of the LOX, "Kiss Of Death" which was a solo Jadakiss track and "Down Bottom" which was a Swizz Beatz produced track that featured Drag-On and Juvenile. Swizz would then go on to work with artists such as The LOX, Eve, Jay-Z, Drag-On, DMX, and others on their future releases. Swizz had a nice reputation as a producer and to some people he was right up there with the current producers such as Timbaland, The Neptunes, Dr. Dre, etc. (Notice I said some people).

In 2002, Swizz dropped a compilation CD entitled Presents G.H.E.T.T.O Stories. The best tracks on the CD ended up being the tracks that Swizz produced that featured other artists. My favorite track was clearly "Bigger Business" which featured Jadakiss, Ron Isley, Cassidy, Snoop Dogg, P Diddy, Baby from Cash Money and TQ. I also liked the Salute Me (Remix) which featured Nas, Fat Joe and Cassidy, "Shyne" which featured Shyne and Swizz Beatz' wife, Mashonda, and "Good Times" which featured Styles P. and was the 1st single from his debut solo CD "A Gangster And A Gentleman". Although all the collaborations on this CD didn't work there were enough songs on this CD to make you pay attention to "Ghetto Stories" in some way.

In 2007, Swizz is still producing bangers and he is especially gaining some "newfound fame" in some ways for the work he did on Beyonce's "B Day" after he co produced "Upgrade U" w/Jay-Z and he produced "Ring The Alarm" and "Get Me Bodied", just as reviewer "Josephll" pointed out.

With "One Band Man", I am not sure what Swizz was trying to accomplish. Once you listen to the CD, you're basically left with some tight tracks to play in a club, one serious song in "The Funeral" and several missed opportunities. The CD starts off with "Product Man" as Swizz tells us what we already know that he is a go to producer for banging tracks and that he doesn't use samples like some producers, i.e., Kanye West. The 1st single is next in "It's Me Snitches". This song will definitely be a club banger for years to come along with the remix that features Swizz, Lil Wayne on his 80th guest appearance this year, R Kelly and Jadakiss. My favorite track on this CD, "You Know Your Boy Did That" isn't even produced by Swizz. Snags comes through as Swizz is able to keep braggin' to us about what he has and what we don't have as the majoirty of this CD tells us as well. Neo Da Matrix produces "The Funeral" which is the one of the few songs of substance that Swizz has on this CD. This will be one of the few tracks that you want to pay attention to as Swizz does a decent job of storytelling on this track. "Take A Picture" may have been alot better had Swizz not use the same Bill Withers' "Lovely Day" sample that Twista and Anthony Hamilton used on "Sunshine" that was featured on Twista's "Kamikaze" CD. Comparing "Take A Picture" to "Sunshine" is like saying MC Hammer is the greatest rapper of all time. "Top Down" is produced by the E.McCaine Edition and Swizz and while the production is pretty good, Swizz does nothing to make you wanna listen to the track. His rhymes on this track are BFI or trash on this song. "Money In The Bank" is the 2nd single and will be another track that you won't mind hearing in the club when you're out on the town. "Part Of The Plan" features Chris Martin from Coldplay and is a pretty good track. This will be one of the reasons why you'll be glad that you bought this CD. You will just wish that there were more tracks like these.

"Big Munny" and "Bust Ya Gunz" with Drag-On are just terrible. It's definitely nice to hear Drag-On with a new 16 on the latter track but Swizz's rhymes are just unbearable at times. You figure with all the artists that Swizz Beatz has worked with and/or knows that he would have had more guest appearances on this project. He is clearly a novice on the microphone and you find yourself wishing that he could have atleast had Cassidy, Eve, DMX, Jigga, The LOX or any of his apphiliates join him on some tracks. Even have producers like Timbaland, Kanye or Pharrell join him on something. You would figure as much as this CD was pushed back that someone would have told Swizz that the rhymes on this CD were just terrible from him. Overall, the production is pretty good but out of the 12 tracks Swizz only produces or co-produces 5 songs. You figure he would have had time to upgrade the rhymes, but clearly that wasn't the case. I will definitely hold up my BUYER BEWARE! sign for this CD which is about 2.5 stars in my opinion, if that much.

James' Top 5

1) Your Know Your Boy Did That
2) The Funeral
3) Part Of The Plan
4) It's Me Snitches (Original and Remix)
5) Money In The Bank

This album could have been so much more. Swizz's last album blew me away. This album erased that memory. Its not that the album sucks, it doesn't. It's just not what he's capable of. With his own producing, in which i place him in the top five in rap, the album should be better.

Swizz, take another three months working on the next album, and work it up to next level.

Overall the album isn't bad, it's just bland.

Wow, I felt this CD was going to be #1 since it's me bitches and money in the bank are awesome club anthems. So I thought hey the whole CD comes pack with different sound that will revolutionized music in this Year. I'm listening right now through amazon and Wow was I disappointed. I hate when artists put amazing singles expecting people to buy their album like we were hipnotize by one song. Believe me, people with music knowledge obviously know what kind of material artist come out with and an average how the album sale will do.

Is obvious to much talk and doing nothing. The album sounds the same rapping and braggin and only two songs from the album work!!

Oh my swizzy should think next time...

Don't buy this album!

Producer/Rapper Swizz Beatz (A.K.A. Kasseem Dean) delivers his debut solo album with "One Man Band" (2007), an eleven track release which features guest appearances from Drag-On, Chris Martin (of Coldplay), Snoop Dogg, Lil Wayne, R Kelly & Jadakiss. When I think of Swizz Beatz I think of the established producer who created the distinct Ruff Ryders sound, and hooked DMX and many others up with fast paced upbeat on point production. Swizz shows he can also be an entertaining MC at times on this joint. Swizz produces five of the track's on this release with additional contributions coming from The Individualz, Nottz, Needlz, Snags, Neo Da Matrix & Young World Music. My favourite track on this release is "Part of the Plan", Swizz delivers some introspective and heartfelt lyrics going back to his childhood and growing up in the ghetto, Swizz keeps it real on the cut delivering his own commentary and stories while using some outstanding vocals from Chris Martin of Coldplay. Two other tracks standout for me on this release, one being "Bust Ya Gunz" which features a guest appearance from Bronx MC Drag-On, this cut features some animated high tempo production which sounds Swizz like but actually comes from Needlz. The other standout for me is "The Funeral", Swizz keeps his listeners entertained with lyrics ranging from the humorous to the dead serious backed by some production from Neo Da Matrix. Singles on this release include "Its Me B******" & "Money In The Bank", I am not a big fan of either. The remix of the former includes guest appearances from Lil Wayne, R Kelly and Jadakiss. A few standouts make "One Man Band" a decent release worth checking out.

There are lots of multi-talented people in the world, and I fully support those that like to shine with all of their gifts, but rapping is not one of Swizz Beatz! DJ Clue sounded crazy doing it and so did Timbaland. The only producers-turned-artists who have really pulled it off are Pharrell (when he does hip hop) and Kanye (who deserves major respect for being so good at both), but Swizz's album was kinda eighties. Constant repeated words, simplistic rhyming, and lyrics like "You're just a dumb dumb" and "The b**ch kicked me out/I'm at my other b**ch's house." Huh?! Swizz, please stick to your last alias name and just do that. Listening to him on this album was about as uncomfortable as when he was on Wild n' Out thinking he was hella funny, but nobody was laughing but him. "You Know Your Boy Did That" was the only beat that I bobbed my head too, and I have no idea why the Snoop excerpt was on there just to tell him his beats were good. It seemed a little odd. This wasn't my cup of tea, but I think if I listened to the instrumentals to a few, I'd like it. However, songs like "The Funeral" with lyrics like "I see an old man in black slacks" could've just been kept altogether.

Swizz Beatz never disappoints with beats. His Top-down and money and the bank and It's Me Bitches is an awesome song to blast out of your car windows, get it!

you wanna hear good producers make albums get dr. dre, ant banks, timbalaND, PHARRELL, AND dj quik not this wack clown somebody knock swizz the funk out.

Swizz Beatz (Kaseem Dean) has been around for about 10 years operating in both Hip Hop and R&B. He's one of the most popular and in-demand producers with a unique sound that is very recognizable. Swizzy always produce bouncy upbeat songs and not too often they have crowd chants, whistles, gunshots, or alarms in the backround. He also produce his own music, without the use of samples like some others do. His music works best as party music, cause they are beatoriented, uptempos that are quite repetitive. He brags about being able to produce a song in 10-15 minutes and sometimes that shows!. From DMX and Eve to Gwen Stefani and Beyonce, Swizzy has certainly worked with alot of great artists through the years and lately he's been even more in the spotlight after his success with Beyonce's last album.

Just like Pharell and Timbaland, Swizzy was also among those producers that liked the spotlight and for the longer time he appeared the more you started to see and hear about him. Lately he even realized he could rap and dropped a few lines here and there as a funny guest on other artists songs, like Bone Thugs N Harmony and Fabolous albums. Just like Pharell and Timbaland it was inevitable that those guestvocals would eventually lead to a solo album of it's own. The diffrence between them and Swizzy which surprise me is that they knew their limits and covered it up by plenty of big guests from their contact lists while Swizzy doesn't. For those of you that heard the compilation album "G.H.E.T.T.O. Stories" where most of the songs had guests, You would be very surprised of how few guests that appears on "One Man Band Man". The only real guests are infact his old protegé Drag-On that appeared on DMX and Eve's old albums and Chris Martin of Coldplay of all people!. Alright, let's take a look at the songs and find out how interesting the album is?.

Like aformentioned there are very few guests here and most of the time Swizzy ends up alone which is very new for him and to be honest he's a very limited MC. From the 10 songs, (the skit and closing remix not included) there is hardly a song over 3 minutes and it's not hard to see why, most songs deal with himself, his money or fame. There are also a few guest producers like Neo Da Matrix, Nottz and Needlz but their productions mostly sound like Swizzy anyway. The first song "Product Man" is a good production where Swizzy talks about being a product man who came to the game at 16 years old and all the things he archieved since. He mention the song title about 50 times in 3 minutes. "It's Me B*tches" or Snitches on the edited version, was the first single. It's perhaps the best production of the album even if Swizzy entirely dedicates the song to himself. The repetitive "Big Munny" it's about money, doh. "Bust Ya Gunz" with Drag-On is forgettable and ditto with the narcisstic "You Know Your Boy Did That" that however does have good beats. Neo Da Matrix produced "The Funeral" is actually a serious song about lost friends. "Take a Picture" samples Bill Withers "Lovely Day" but it doesn't have much in common with the original when Swizzy suggest that people should take his photo. Next song "Top Down" is a pretty good party song about riding his car, atleast the production is. More about his money on "Money in the Bank". There is this annoying speed up voice on this one that ruins it for me. Chris Martin from Coldplay appears on the last song "Part of the Plan", the song is a highlight but I wonder why so many Hip Hop artists want Martin and his shallow voice on their albums?. After this there is a skit with Snoop, wasted opportunity and a remix of "Snitches"

Overall, While the beats are pretty cool on many songs it isn't enough when there are too few ideas. Swizzy isn't that fun to listen to when he doesn't have much to say. And why not more guest artists? If he could get Beyonce, Eve, Busta Rhymes and DMX to appear on one song each I think this album would have been much better but in it's current state I would only recommend it to die hard Swizzy fans. A Dissapointing album when the possability to make it much better was just a phone call away.