Search - Donald D :: Notorious

Again a 3 1/2 from me...

Mike J | Central Coast, CA United States | 03/29/2004

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Back in 1989 it seemed to me like the hip-hop world was on the edge of a revolution from Ice-T's Rhyme Syndicate. I would've sworn to you that Rhyme Syndicate would become the dominant force in the rap game similar to how Wu-Tang ruled the early to mid 90's. Boy was I wrong. The sad part of it was that the lack of success wasn't for lack of trying. Take this album for example. Notorious is a very even album. It has a few near great songs mixed with a balance of the LL Cool J formula of hardcore ("Notorious"), battle type rhymes ("Syndicate Posse" & "Lost In A Freestyle" featuring Ice-T himself), pleasing the ladies with a love song ("A Letter I'll Never Send") and a raunchy one for the fellas ("Just Suck"). Then that gangsta touch was thrown in the mix with "Who Got The Gun", "Armed and Dangerous", and "Car Chase". Finally something was thrown in just for the East Coast with "Another Night In The Bronx". Donald was so convinced of his ability that he had left behind a career of professional baseball to put out this album.I guess Ice-T and Donald were wrong too. My dream and theirs just wasn't meant to be. Time after time releases were put out from Rhyme Syndicate (Everlast, Kid Jazz, The Syndicate album, etc.) but no one beside Ice could seem to move any units. As for this album, maybe Epic just didn't have a clue how to push this one as it was so early into the Gansta era. Maybe the dominance of NWA and Eazy-E just left no room for other albums outside of their camp. The video for "F.B.I." was a seldom seen thing on Yo! MTV Raps. It got no radio play that I remember at all. And despite Donald's appearance on several posse cuts on Ice T's albums ("The Syndicate", "Whatcha Wanna Do", and "Fly By") Donald was still pretty much unrecognized outside of the Los Angeles area. This fact in itself was an irony since Donald actually hailed from the Bronx. If you can find it, this album is a great example showing how the West Coast progressed to it's dominance in the early 90's."