Search - All City :: Metropolis Gold

All City is The Hot Joint

SmokaJ | TORONTO | 11/07/2003

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Say hello to Greg Valentine and Mega Large, All City. Understudies of ONYX.



To my knowledge, this is one of the most underrated & slept-on albums I can think of. This is everything a late 90's NY hip-hop album should have been. Fresh dope beats, arrogant, smooth, insightful lyrics and an all-star cast of NY producers. Despite being brought up by ONYX as a part of their Afficial Nast crew, All City sounds nothing like the loud, screamin' & stompin' ONYX. As a duo, they are truly gifted with smooth deliveries and clever rhymes.



Listen. DJ Premier did one of his nicest jobs EVER on track 7, "The Actual." Pete Rock shines like the sun on track 3, "Priceless." Other production by Rockwilder, DJ Clark Kent, EZ Elpee and of course ONYX. This album sounds like it dropped in 1994.



F.Y.I: "Just Live", (track 17) is one of my favorite tracks to this day (slight personal bias, of course).



Bottom Line: This is truly a great album. I highly recommend it to any east-coast hip-hop fan, don't sleep. 4 stars. Peace."

GOOD OFFICIAL NAST ALBUM

E | 02/20/2005

(3 out of 5 stars)

"I GIVE THIS 3 1/2 STARS



Gregg Valentine and J. Mega Large, the two emcees who comprise All City, need the XXL magazine treatment; you know, the XXL milk carton 'Lost & Found' - where happened to and where is All City? These guys just disappeared! Anyhow...



All City's of the Afficial NASTee N----z fold, with main members ONYX riding shotgun and making minimal cameos, namely as background hypemen on the first track "Who Dat," and "Xtreme (Hot Joint)."



This debut (and likely their last album) is a slightly above average album. J. Mega has more of a laid-back flow but his man Valentine is nice (e.g. listen to him RIP the last verse on "The Actual" apart)...when he wants to be. But at times, Valentine does fall into mediocrity with his verbal skills; both of the emcees can spit, though.



The 5th song, named "Xtreme" in the album credits but showing up as "The Hot Joint" on Amazon and your favorite media player, is a straight BANGER, produced by (!) Fredro Starr?!? Yeah - maybe Fredro should've displayed more of his producing talents while still in the hip hop game.



The only complaint here is, at times, the production is just unimaginative (e.g. DJ Clark Kent's horrendous "Hot Joint Remix") and ho-hum topics (e.g. getting money, guns, women). And to be honest with you, these duo had potential, but they just didn't sound hungry enough. Overall, it's a good buy to just vibe to."

One of most underrated albums ever!!!

artem ivanov | Russia | 02/13/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This is great album. Very cool production, cool beatz. METROTHEME is great track, one of best i ve ever heard!
ACTUAL is very dope, beatz are great (Dj Premier best work),
and J Mega and Greg VAlentine are cool too.
This album has some brilliant tracks like "Metrotheme", "Hot Joint", "Actual", "Just live", of course.
Also there are some good calm tracks like Timez iz Harder, Daydreamin, etc.
There are pair of wack tracks, but album is very dope at all!!!
I can hardly recommend it for all of customers in here!"