It's safe to say that with "20/20" they've created another album that will serve their core audience well.

This will hold a bizarre position in his catalogue--Recovery is not his best, nor his worst, but either people will listen incessantly or barely at all. There is no middle ground.

From the dance beats to the cross-pollination of guest artists to the old pop samples, Global Warming is a big dumb album that feels so calculated and market-tested that it is not much fun to listen to.

The album does maintain enough of a hard edge to keep Snoop from going TOO soft.

If you are in the right mindset, Fated is a rewarding listen.

Despite the prolific amount of material having the possibility of thinning out the quality of his beats and rhymes, Plies just keeps getting better with every CD.

1 and 2 and lack the incentive and inspiration even great rappers need to make great albums, but it's an impressive compendium of what Shallah Raekwon is capable of.

Like the core message of Everything Is Borrowed, this album will, unfortunately, come and go soon enough, little trace left behind.

The problem Ludacris faces is that both sides of him are great to listen to but it inevitably restricts him from making the cohesive magnum opus his career deserves.

Relentlessly preachy music can be just as obnoxious as the relentlessly vapid, but even pop music can offer more substance than this. If this album was a soda, it would be light and bubbly, yet its sugar free nature would make you crave a Mexican soda in a glass bottle instead.

While the beats are mostly good, it feels like Macklemore missed out on an opportunity to really set his solo career apart from Macklemore & Ryan Lewis.

The best thing about “Save Me” may be that it’s a very small bite to digest, clocking in at just barely over 20 minutes after the conclusion of “Love Thy Enemies.”

Radioactive is a mixed bag that has some outstanding tracks, while others fail from a lack of execution particularly in the production and hook department.

Despite the presence of some must-hear rap tracks, it's hard to justify the purchase if you are paying for only about half an album.

If you're not looking for an album that will change the world, but simply change your mood for an hour or two, there's definitely something to be said for Nothing.

All in all, the flow is the same, the beats are a little different, and the person is a little more scarred and a little more wise than we last saw him.

Most poeple probably have those two tracks ["Love Sosa" and "I Don't Like"], and there isn't anything else on here that warrants buying this or taking the time to find a torrent of it.

The material found on "Manifesto" is, for the most part, superb, with only a handful of tracks that fail to live up to the quality found on the rest of the album.

The members were certainly armed, and they seem to hit more than they miss.

Not every track on Lip Lock is a home run, but she bats for the cycle here and only strikes out a few times.

It's an album with no direction, no cohesion and a striking lack of energy.

Wayne, much like in his mixtape days, is finally having fun again. And when he does that, the results are captivating.

Aside from leaning too hard into the baller and misogynistic cliches “2093” is a solid listen.

Nelly pushes crossover so far on a few of these tracks a few of his more hardcore fans may be turned off, but frankly since this is a concept album songs like "N Dey Say" are what I expected from "Suit."

On the lyrical side of things, 50 seems to have his edge back. Whether he's orchestrating a robbery or bucking (pun intended) shots at his foes, it seems apparent that the criticisms got to him. For the hard core fans, the softer songs are skippable, but I can't hold that against him too much.

So there you have it, a finely produced, polished, and performed album from one of the game's most hated emcees.

Well it’s a better Drake album than “Honestly, Nevermind” so that’s a plus. It’s not a better 21 album than “I Am > I Was” or “Issa” though so that’s a minus. If you split the difference you wind up with an average album. There are a few joints I’d care to play more than once.

While it's far from the most important record in hip-hop in 2006, let alone in Diddy's career, it's one that does at least keep your interest the whole way through and is worth listening to more than once.