“Shoot To Kill” – Review Of G-Unit’s T.O.S.
ALBUM REVIEWS By Patrick M. on July 1, 2008 at 9:12 pm
Hate em’ or love em’, they’re back. After years of titillating/boring Hip-Hop fans with beefs, pot shots, slaps, and gossip, G-Unit has finally released a full length follow up to 2003’s Beg For Mercy. Those who’ve tired of the Unit’s pervasive presence in Hip-Hop’s gossip rags, should brace themselves for another summer+ of 50 and friends. They’ve backed up the chatter though, by creating an appealing album in Terminate On Sight.
Expected to come hard, the Queens crew gets dirty quick on the opener “Straight Outta Southside.” The beat is a modernization of Dre’s original from 1988, keeping the fierce bass line without seeming like an imitation. Banks, Yayo, and 50 take the cue and spit fervent gun-toting Molotov-throwing gangster rhymes. It’s an ideal opening track, setting the tone and engaging listeners by force.
Their gangster credentials established, the rest of the album is a clinic on modern East Coast gangster rap, balancing street jams like “Casualties Of War,” with club tracks like “I Like The Way She Do It.” What’s most impressive is the production; if Nas can be claimed to have a tin ear for beats then 50 is fucking Beethoven. There are a few big names behind the boards like Swizz Beatz, but in general, G-Unit continues their reliance on unnamed or in house beat makers without sacrificing any quality. From “Ready Or Not’s” dark xylophone chimes to the moving rhythmic parts of the familiar “Party Ain’t Over,” the beats keep the listener engaged in the album without overwhelming the lyricists.
Speaking of said lyricists, the chemistry and cohesiveness of G-Unit is reminiscent of successful groups past and present, and key to the album’s success. Each member (Buck included,) has moments on the album that they dominate, while maintaining a consistent level of quality throughout. Yes that includes the much maligned Tony Yayo, who wins most-improved honors. His performance on “No Days Off,” exemplifies an approach focused on mixing clever rhymes (“rebound quick like Greg Oden,”) with a wild man’s menace. It’s a style that many a second-tier Wu member used to make their mark and, for Yayo, it works. Banks’ throaty monotone hasn’t gone anywhere, and he shows flashes of the lyrical talent that made fans think he’d break free of 50’s shadow. In particular, “Ready Or Not” finds him at his pugilistic peak. The syllables barely make it out of his mouth, but his challenges to foes are the hardest and best rhymes on the album.
As for Boo Boo, he seems content to let the others shine. Whether humbled by the “L” to Kanye or trying to show he can be a team player, he rarely takes over a song the way you’d expect. This is not a bad thing, as it helps give the album the group feel it needs to succeed. And if 50 isn’t the displaying his sharpest lyrics, he remains one of the few rappers capable of giving songs a big time feel through sheer charisma and swagger. He makes this mark on the album through the choruses. And whether screaming “T.O.S,” mockingly baiting T.I. on “You So Tough,” or taking his inevitable turn behind the auto-tuner on “Rider Pt. 2,” he will have fans rhyming along.
When interviewed about this album, Lloyd Banks called it “a good album for this time in Hip-Hop.” That’s absolutely correct, not in the purely positive manner Banks refers to. It’s an embodiment of Hip-Hop’s present. The production is stronger and more dynamic than the lyrics. The balance of club and thug flirts with becoming formulaic, rescued only by maintaining high quality throughout. It breaks no boundaries, and if the lyrics are meant to conjure danger, the reality is the Unit play it safe on Terminate On Sight.
If you’re looking for the next big breakthrough in rhyming or lyrics, look elsewhere. Otherwise for a heatrock of an album topped with a heavy dose of bravado, the Unit’s got you covered.
Watch — G-Unit T.O.S. Preview
Listen — G-Unit – Chase Da Cat (T.O.S. Bonus Track)
Previously Posted — Notable Quotable – 50 Cent On “You So Tough” | G-Unit T.O.S. Listening Session. 6.12.08. NYC.
Posted in ALBUM REVIEWS, GENERAL — Tags: 50 Cent, Album Review, G-Unit, Lloyd Banks, T.O.S., Terminate On Site, Tony Yayo, Young Buck
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Young Buck-Terminate On Sight
http://www.zshare.net/download/14539203f6ca148f/
Nas is def going after 50 on “Queens Get The Money”
niggas is still hatin
talkin that nas done fell off with rhyming
he’d rather floss with diamonds
they pray “please god let him spit that ‘oozie in the army lining’
that ’shorty doo-wop rolling oowops in the park reclining’ ”
take twenty-seven mc’s put em in a line and they out of alignment
my assignment said she said retirement hiding behind email and the kronic
get rich but dies rhyming
this is high science
now add 23 more from queens to b’more
i’m over they heads like a bulimic on a seesaw
now thats 50 porch monkeys ate up at the same time
4 cigs…?
SMH
^ Yeah for real.
4 cigs????
this is the 1st good review ive seen.
agreed
outside of the intro i didnt really hear much i liked.
I listened to it once.
I likeded it.
Like most (if not all) “albums” (and I use that term loosely), it’s definitely not wack, but it’s not spectacular or classic either.
most music is a product of going through the motions.
I gotta find a Chinese spot so I can get some rice to make some ghetto Turkey Spam Musubi
The more I listened to it, the more I realized I wasn’t feeling the fact that there are sooooooo many “Party Ain’t Over”s and not enough “You So Tough”s on it. I was frontin’ though, the club songs are grade A. For those who are second guessing, “in my opinion” TOS is right there with Beg For Mercy. If you liked the first, you’ll like the second.
Oh yeah! For all those people who just love some Tony Yayo, he actually shined on a few of the tracks. No lie! Don’t believe me, download it and skim to his verses.
LMAO
“in my opinion” TOS is right there with Beg For Mercy.
===========================
Nah Bruh. Beg For Mercy is G-Unit’s opus.
nothing new…
nothing groundbreaking…
didn’t need to be….
good sh*t….
Beg For Mercy is wack as hell in the middle. And the end for that matter. What’s that shit “I Salute You?” Garbage. Baby you got, you got, you got what I need??? Trash.
4 cigs for this and a 3.5 for C3?
I don’t think so.
some luney broad is on primetime keepin a monkey as her child…
Heard a cat bumping Let That Beat Build at the light yesterday, turned my jawn down and listened objectively….
and what a bunch of fluff…
Like The Prestige with no 3rd part…
TOS bumps harder, though a 4 admittedly seems a little steep…
Independent Music Week on MTV….
They are so much more in tuned with the streets than BET.
^ Sorry…. MTV2. lol
Walmart will launch an exclusive apparel line in the fall designed by rapper Master P and his son, fellow rapper Romeo, Walmart spokeswoman Linda Blakley said Monday.
The urban-inspired apparel line, P. Miller, will include graphic T-shirts, hoodies and denim and will be available at a limited number of Walmart stores.
It’s the father-son duo’s second deal with Walmart.
Master P, aka Percy Miller, and his son, formerly known as Lil Romeo, in 2007 made Walmart the exclusive physical retailer of their coreleased album, “Miller Boys: Hip-Hop History.”
Man im sorry but this album is great…..It has everything you want…Lyrics,Beats…Nuff said..
GH,gH,gH,gH,GH,GH,GH,GH G-UNIT
Aiight Dirk, Drop that Nas shit already…He better be holding some joints on ice….I hate this leaking a song at a time shit.
Haven’t listened to this album but 4 Cigs???
Not really a G-Unit fan but may have to give it a listen.
IMO Nas would get Fiddy any day on the mic….with one lung even!
^^ I agree w/ NDiamonds
*Ahem*
If anybody has Eric Sermon & Marvin Gaye’s – Just Like Music, extended version & not the 3:56 joint, holler.
all i need is 1 lung
http://www.zshare.net/audio/1453970653f11127/
Nas – Queens Get the Money
via 2dopenoyz
definitely gonna have to give this one a spin in the wheel…been hatin g-unit like it was my job for a while now but i think maybe they finally came full circle…nice review Patrick
Sean Paul – a new age
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=N0XQL2VB
01. All Alone
02. All Out
03. Get Right
04. Mama I Love You
05. Move Your Body
06. One Life
07. Pick It Up N Drop It
08. Play Di Music
09. She Want It
10. Sufferer
11. Wath Dem Roll
12. Beat Like Drum
The time crept by so slowly and painfully that the 23-year-old Columbia University journalism student had decided it was time to end her life.
Over many torturous hours, she had been repeatedly raped, sodomized and forced to perform oral sex, a prosecutor told a jury on Thursday. The accused, Robert A. Williams, 31, had doused the woman’s face and body with boiling water and bleach, forced her to swallow handfuls of pills and to chase them with beer, sealed her mouth with glue, and bound her wrists and legs with shoelaces, cords and duct tape, said the prosecutor, Ann P. Prunty. And now, Ms. Prunty said, he was asking the woman to gouge out her own eyes with a pair of scissors.
And so the woman, sitting on the floor of her studio apartment in Hamilton Heights and holding a pair of scissors between her knees — the blade pointing toward her face — tried to stop the suffering. She lowered her face to the blade, but turned her head at the last moment, trying to stab herself in the neck instead of her eyes.
The scissors slipped from her grasp, the suicide attempt failed, and the woman suffered several more hours of torture, Ms. Prunty said.
The woman survived the nearly 19-hour ordeal, which ended, Ms. Prunty said, when she used a fire started by Mr. Williams to burn the cords that secured her wrists to a futon.
Mr. Williams went on trial Thursday in State Supreme Court in Manhattan, where he faces 71 criminal counts, including attempted murder, rape, arson and assault. If convicted, he could spend the rest of his life in prison.
Mr. Williams, who was homeless at the time of his arrest about a week later at the scene of a burglary in Queens, has a lengthy police record dating to his childhood, the authorities have said.
He was charged in a murder as a juvenile, though the outcome of that case is sealed, a law enforcement official said, and he spent eight years in prison for an attempted-murder conviction in 1996.
The prosecution began presenting its case with Ms. Prunty’s vivid, step-by-step account of the attack, which she said began about 10 p.m. on April 13, 2007, and lasted until 4 p.m. the following afternoon. Mr. Williams’s lawyer, Arnold J. Levine, did not make an opening statement. Outside the courtroom, Mr. Levine declined to talk about his strategy. In hearings before the trial, he seemed to indicate that he would challenge witnesses’ identification of his client.
The victim and several witnesses in the six-story apartment building where the woman lived picked out Mr. Williams from lineups, Ms. Prunty said. She said that DNA evidence also linked him to the crime.
Justice Carol Berkman, who is presiding over the trial, found in October that Mr. Williams was mentally fit for trial. After that decision, Mr. Levine said he was considering a mental illness defense.
As Ms. Prunty delivered her opening statement, Mr. Williams sat slouched in his chair, with his head tilted downward.
On the night of the attack, the victim, a month from graduating with a master’s degree, was at Columbia, putting the final touches on her résumé for a job fair the next day, Ms. Prunty said. When she arrived at her apartment building, she got on the elevator and found Mr. Williams inside, Ms. Prunty said. She rode with him to her floor, and could hear him follow her as she navigated the long L-shaped hallway to her apartment.
As the woman entered her apartment, Ms. Prunty said, Mr. Williams asked her if she knew where a Mrs. Evans lived. The woman stopped to answer.
“Her kind moment of hesitation would cost her,” Ms. Prunty said.
Mr. Williams forced his way into the apartment, Ms. Prunty said, put the woman in a chokehold, and slapped her cellphone from her hand. Mr. Williams slammed the door behind him, and “her Friday the 13th nightmare began,” Ms. Prunty said.
Mr. Williams turned a clock by the woman’s bed to the wall and made her take off her watch so she would not know what time it was, Ms. Prunty said. He raped her repeatedly and cut her hair because “he wanted to see her face, her fear and humiliation.”
He made her sit in her bathtub, and that was the first time he told her to gouge her eyes, Ms. Prunty said. He punished her for refusing by boiling water in a kettle and throwing it on her, the prosecutor said. The water jolted her so much that she broke through the bonds on her wrist, Ms. Prunty said, as the skin on her chest, torso and thighs blistered. (On hearing this detail, one of the jurors shook his head and covered his mouth.)
“Just kill me! Just kill me!” the woman pleaded, Ms. Prunty said.
Later, after her failed attempt to kill herself with the scissors, Mr. Williams threw a heavy object at the back of her head, cracking her skull, Ms. Prunty said.
Mr. Williams was intent on damaging her vision because, Ms. Prunty said, “a blind witness could never identify her attacker.”
Mr. Williams eventually slit the woman’s eyelids and face with a butcher knife, Ms. Prunty said, but she did not lose her vision. He fastened her legs and arms to a futon, and she lost consciousness.
When she awoke, she again pleaded for him to kill her, but heard no response. He was gone.
Mr. Williams “only stopped when he could no longer feel the scourge of control over another human being,” Ms. Prunty said.
The woman smelled smoke, Ms. Prunty said, so she wriggled her legs free and pulled the futon away from the wall. She used the fire to free her arms, Ms. Prunty said, and then ran through the smoke to her door. It took her several attempts to open it because her hands were limp and numb, Ms. Prunty said.
The woman ran through her hallway seeking help, Ms. Prunty said, “an image of the walking, living dead.”
the next MC to blow:
http://www.youtube.com/v/2LzgYWCgkZk
http://www.youtube.com/v/Z-ap5Fp2T6c
I like G-Unit so I’ll buy this from HMV tomorrow. At least the Unit is holding the East Coast down right now, until Nas drops next week (or tonight on TSS!).
ps: TC you’re buggin’!!! “Salute” had an ill beat, plus “Beg For Mercy” had straight heat through out (ok maybe 3 tracks at the most were aiigghhtt).
WOW.. Has anybody else noticed how great the weather’s been lately? I mean, it’s been awesome.
I’m gonna go for a walk.
*continues ignoring T.O.S*
Rosie O’Donnell
@ Wit-E
That’s some crazy shit.
“if ya think ya better ya NOOOTTTT”
good shit, Dirk
@ Flea
Bettaaaaaa askkkkk somebodyyyyy. That. Shit. Was. Half. Asssssssssssss.
Why cant G-Unit do a Terminate On Sight on guys like the one in that rape/abduction case posted above?
Maybe they should be some real-life superheros instead of pretending to be hip hop action figures for 12 year old boys.
This is some fantasy bullshit. G.I. Joe-Unit motherfuckers.
Toys.
Go do some good in your communities, you assholes.
^ wow.
@ Frank: That’s what the POLICE are for. Oh wait I forgot…the police SHOOT Black people. Quit looking to hiphop artists to community leaders and be one yourself.
I meant to “be”sorry. Where the fuck is my Gravatar? I’ve been hijacked.
Even with the review, I’ll still consider Yayo this generation’s Memphis Bleek.
But I’ll have to check it out if you guys give it 4 cigs.
…at a bisexual bridal shower.
Yayo > Bleek > MC Brains > Pras
Artist: Jay-Z
Album Title: (Live at Glastonbury 2008)
01-Wonderwall (Live at Glastonbury 2008)
02-99 Problems_Back in Black (Live at Glastonbury 2008)
03-Is That Yo Bitch_ (Live at Glastonbury 2008)
04-Smack My Bitch Up_Rehab (Live at Glastonbury 2008)
05-A Billi (Live at Glastonbury 2008)
06-Dirt Off Your Shoulder_Lying From You (Live at Glastonbury 2008)
07-Izzo (H.O.V.A.)_I Want You Back (Live at Glastonbury 2008)
08-Can I Get a… (Live at Glastonbury 2008)
09-Beware of the Boys (Live at Glastonbury 2008)
10-I Just Wanna Love U (Give It 2 Me) (Live at Glastonbury 2008)
11-Show Me What You Got (Live at Glastonbury 2008)
12-Girls, Girls, Girls (Live at Glastonbury 2008)
13-American Boy (Live at Glastonbury 2008)
14-Umbrella (Live at Glastonbury 2008)
15-Hard Knock Life (Ghetto Anthem) (Live at Glastonbury 2008)
16-Beautiful Moment_ Speech (Live at Glastonbury 2008)
17-Encore_Numb (Live at Glastonbury 2008)
Code:
http://uploaded.to/file/d9360w/Jay-Z_(Live_Glastonbury_2008)-2008-EMC.rar
OR
http://rapidshare.com/files/126466236/Jay-Z__Live_Glastonbury_2008_-2008-EMC.rar
Any sign of any new Murs matertial????
Testify… so smooth
oh… this is a G-Unit post… my bad
kind of random, but i cant find any good links for this but…
anybody holding or can hit me up with a link for:
Dino: The Essential Dean Martin
thanks a lot
AC, try this
htp://www.megaupload.com/?d=G8R05BJ5
http://www.zshare.net/audio/11318792cc422656/
Mickey Factz ft. Drake & Travis – Overdose On Life (Prod. by Omen)
s!ck!!
all i need is 1 lung
=================
LOL
Yo wit-E i dunno were u found that MC but i’d sign him just because he’s pure jokes!
Kweenz Git Da’ Money All Day Baby….
shoutz 2 BK as well !!!
@ 500K Flea
Quit looking to hip hop artists to be community leaders???! Are you fucking kidding me?!?
What fuckin planet are you livin on?
You’re like that other fuckin retard on here talkin about “rappers shouldnt complain about shit” Get the fuck back to your couch with your mom and your fuckin barney the dinosaur.
If you cant even ASK that someone with 500,000 billion dollars, who CAME FROM the shit themselves, turn around and at least TRY to make some fucking shit right, then we are well and truly FUCKED right now.
FUCK most of these rap albums AND their shitty fuckin fans.
Lil HOMO’S…
Let me put it FRANKly…
Somebody needs some pussy.
I like my artists to say sumn too, but at the end of the day this is just entertainment…if you get a message, cool….and if not, it’s just entertainment, yo…
wow.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRYeqGZRo9Q
lol @ “500,000 billion dollars”
Good review, I bought the album yesterday and it was worth the money.
Untill now the best album that came out this year.
No doubt better as Weezys.
Good review, I bought the album yesterday and it was worth the money.
Untill now the best album that came out this year.
No doubt better as Weezys.
@ Frank: U mad???!!! How the fuck do you know that these dudes don’t already help their communities in some capacity??? All you know about is their music and probably jack-shit about what they do in the hood. What the fuck are YOU doing to better your hood???!!! Don’t e-thug me bitch-boy, I make moves in my community and help people as opposed to sending vituperative comments across the internet that won’t change shit. Word to TC man, go and beat some pussy up and fall back.
Eli’s swagger is immaculate like his front tuck
ONLY HH HEADS CAN FUX WITH HH !
FUCC THE REST IS HYSTERIC
…
GREUMS BLESS TSS BLESS TSS
Eli got the front tuck game on lock!
^Yea in Italy they call it the 3 Quarter Beltless Euro Cuff. He’s so ahead of the game. He’s in auto-pilot while guys just stare at his wardrobe
Where’s that Nas album at? Thought there would be a role call first thing this morning…
Let me put it FRANKly…
Somebody needs some pussy.
==============================
ROFL!
Can someone re-up Testify by Nas on zshare?
Iunno about 4 cigs, but, it wasn’t actually that bad of a CD.
“Vituperative” is such a good word.
Word.
I needed to laugh today so I came back to read Fank and 500K Flea’s comments. I can’t believe homie said “superheros” like firemen swoop in buildings with capes on.
“Don’t e-thug me bitch-boy”
That shit is HILARIOUS!!!
*bows at Flea’s feet for his scholarly use of linguistics*
Yo album was crack, except for kitty kat, i like the way she do it. 50 came hard with it, Banks was incredible and Yayo actually wasn’t terrible. Buck was good too even if he is confused. I’ll give the album a 3.75 out of 5.