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He's still dutifully reciting his supposed criminal exploits, gleefully threatening to brutalize his enemies, and compulsively demeaning women--and, thankfully, he's still redeeming those deadly boring cliches with inventive rhyme schemes and a well-developed sense of sarcasm.
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The Harlem MC remains one of hip-hop's most compelling eccentrics, enlivening clichéd gangsta subject matter and pro forma beats with his deceptively virtuosic flow, and with taunts that work by wiggy word association.
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The New York TimesThe fabulously snotty attitude, the melodic wit, the rhymes that tend toward glossolalia: yes, Cam’ron has returned to form.
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It would be nice to see him move beyond his content comfort zone, but Cam'ron's virtuoso verbal onslaught pays off frequently enough to take this disc to a higher level.
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Indeed, the scaled-down nature of Crime Pays is salient throughout.
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Crime Pays is Cam'ron's triumphant return to form....You also have an overabundance of skits on the album that generally are just there and not entertaining.
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Cam’ron has evolved on this no-frills release, and it is disarmingly effective.
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Throughout Crime Pays Cam wobbles between comfort and rote, often landing on the correct side of that division, but illuminating in the process that the gap between laziness and his brand of lazy brilliance is both a crack in the sidewalk and a yawning canyon.
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This is a back to basics effort with no superstar Lil Wayne guest shot, and plenty of mixtape flavored production mostly from the hands of Skitzo or araabMUZIK.
User score distribution:
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Positive: 10 out of 13
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Mixed: 2 out of 13
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Negative: 1 out of 13
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BrittanyB.May 27, 2009Killa Cam came back on f**kin fire with Crime Pays! I love the new album.