These are the things you need to know about Double Up, Mase's sophomore effort. "Stay Out of My Way" samples Madonna and Public Enemy; "Get Ready" rides a interpolation of Shalamar's "Night to Remember" (curiously nothing ... more »is heard from the Temptations' classic "Get Ready"); "Make Me Cry" samples Fleetwood Mac and Natalie Cole. And so on. Yeah baby, Puff Daddy taught his protégé well. Like his mentor, Mase is not a preposessing rapper, and his monotone can become rather wearying since he rarely changes cadences. His rhymes are pedestrian at best--he rhymes "Lewinsky" with "convince me," but he's not talking politics. Still, this is a good party or hip-hop dance-class album; the production is razor sharp and the samples are well chosen. Unlike most hip-hop that demands to be foreground, Mase makes music that is perfectly content to be pleasant, lightly funky background music. --Martin Johnson« less
These are the things you need to know about Double Up, Mase's sophomore effort. "Stay Out of My Way" samples Madonna and Public Enemy; "Get Ready" rides a interpolation of Shalamar's "Night to Remember" (curiously nothing is heard from the Temptations' classic "Get Ready"); "Make Me Cry" samples Fleetwood Mac and Natalie Cole. And so on. Yeah baby, Puff Daddy taught his protégé well. Like his mentor, Mase is not a preposessing rapper, and his monotone can become rather wearying since he rarely changes cadences. His rhymes are pedestrian at best--he rhymes "Lewinsky" with "convince me," but he's not talking politics. Still, this is a good party or hip-hop dance-class album; the production is razor sharp and the samples are well chosen. Unlike most hip-hop that demands to be foreground, Mase makes music that is perfectly content to be pleasant, lightly funky background music. --Martin Johnson
"Sophmore year can be tough for artists and Ma$e is no different. After having a strong first set with Harlem World, Ma$e rushes into making this follow up. The cd is okay at best and compared to his first it it isn't worth listening to. The songs on this one are not as good. Ma$e samples some decent songs from the 80s and seemingly forgets how to rap over them like he did on Harlem World. Get Ready and All I Ever Wanted are the top tracks and Scratch is also pretty good. But the rest feel to capture Ma$e's true rap ability and sets him self up for having trouble on the solo rap tracks. Mase clearly rushed into this album and tried to put something out before Bad Boy collapsed. But he rushed to fast and depended too much on puff daddy to put blazin beats and tracks like on the first one. The end result of all that is repative beats and weak lyrics. In all I hope Mase either stays in retirement or should he come back gets away from PD and uses his true ability. Mase can rap, unfortunatly he has yet to really show us, and this album fails at even coming close. My best advice do DOUBLE time PAST this cd."
Horrible
Latoia Richardson | Warwick, Bermuda | 10/13/1999
(1 out of 5 stars)
"After buying his first CD, Harlem World, I became an instant Mase fan. This CD, Double Up, fell way short of my expectations. It was rushed and no thought went into production. To sum it up-HORRIBLE. Thank goodness he's retiring to find the Lord. Maybe the Lord will help him find his talent."
Mase's Sophmore album fails
BadBoyHal@aol.com | Chicago, IL USA | 12/11/1999
(1 out of 5 stars)
"In Mase's first album, Harlem World, Mase had great production from Puffy and the Hit Men. He also had quite a few tracks featuring other artists. It is now apparent, after his release of Double Up, that Mase can simply not rap alone. Maybe it is a blessing in disguise he is retiring. The "hit" of this album, "Get Ready" featuring Blackstreet, is nothing like his first single off his old album "Feel So Good". He attempts to relive old success with a song with Total and one with Puffy, but for lyrical and production reasons, these songs fail. All in all, the M A Dollar sign E is smart to have gotten out of the rap game with just a little dignity. Let's just hope he doesn't come back."
FORGET THIS CRAP! GO GET A WU-TANG ALBUM!
BadBoyHal@aol.com | 07/18/1999
(1 out of 5 stars)
"SINCE 1996, MASE HAS BEEN GIVING US WAYS "HOW NOT TO MAKE AN ALBUM". WEAK LYRICS, WEAK BEATS, AND EVEN WEAK VOCALS MADE THIS LP, UM... WEAK! I HATE TO ADMIT IT, BUT HARLEM WORLD WAS A LITTLE BETTER THAN DOUBLE-UP. GO GET A WU-TANG ALBUM FAST! THIS LP DOES'NT TEACH, IT DECEIVES THE LISTENER ABOUT BUYING EXPENSIVE CARS, JEWELS, AND CLOTHES. TOO BAD I COULD GIVE HIM -2 STARS. THANK GOD THIS IS HIS LAST ALBUM, BECAUSE HIP-HOP WAS DEFINATELY NOT HIS TRUE CALLING."
5 star
wes | 06/21/2004
(5 out of 5 stars)
"well okay so it might be a little late on to review this cd, but with his return and his new album "Welcome Back" ready to drop this august i think is appropriate. For those of you who own or have harlem world and not this one, all i can suggest is keep your minds and your hearts open for this, because this at times is far from being all ghetto fabulous (like harlem world is).Mase had taken a much more mature and aggresive approach in this album tracks such as "f#uck me, f#ck you", "blood is thicker" "from scratch" and "same n1ggers" where he hits back at reports suggesting he patronized a prostitute "what i need a hooker for, im getting head from brandy". mase has not lost his laid back (often referred to as "lazy") flow, there are some great party tracks such "get ready", "if you want to party" "do it again" and "no matter what" that samples gary numan's cars. many people were very quick to attack mase for this and try and find faults, but the reason this album didn't sell well is because it wasn't marketed well, there were no promotional tools used in promoting this album only spoken word engagements. despite what people will have you believe everyone should respect bad boy for all their achievements, and this is one of those albums that deserves respect.this is an essential album for all mase/bad boy fans. welcome back mase, i look forward to august."