Puff Daddy's yelling spree on 'You Don't Eat' might as well have been sourced from a Bad Boy conference call in 1996. Otherwise, Jadakiss continues to show why he was a perfect fit to do player introductions for the Brooklyn Nets back in October- Top 5 Dead or Alive is likewise an intermittently entertaining, but dead-end collective of big-money heavyweights long past their prime. While Jadakiss can wild out on his own terms_,_ the gothic turn-up of 'You Can See Me' is a long way from the Tunnel for not a single second are we led to believe that We the Best producer Lee on the Beats, Future and Jadakiss were ever in the same room, let alone the same frame of mind here. Yeah, Future shows up on the 'street single', but he did the same favor for Uncle Murda this year-don't confuse his appearance for a guarantee of any kind of chart success.

The good news is that Jadakiss' typical means of scoring a chart hit is completely outmoded in 2015, so there aren't any chintzy Neptunes beats, unctuous R&B hooks or blatant attempts to recreate 'Why' in its entirety. This is kinda true of Top 5 Dead or Alive the problem is that one of the world's best and most frustratingly aimless rappers ends up in the same no-man's land he always does. Impressive first-week sales notwithstanding, no one expects Jadakiss to be a commercial force anymore, which would presumably work to his advantage. Without the temptation to cater to a non-existent audience clamoring for him to make pop songs, you'd figure the boundaries between 'album' and 'mixtape' would no longer exist. Like the original Champ is Here mixtape, 3 proved far superior to Kiss tha Game Goodbye and Kiss of Death, but it was bittersweet all the same for highlighting Jadakiss' strengths (spitting raspy punchline bars over someone else's beats) and admitting to his weaknesses by omission (putting actual songs together, getting those beats for himself). Jadakiss' first LP in over six years had its title as far back as 2010, when 'Top 5 Dead or Alive' appeared on The Champ is Here 3 as a teaser for a record due later that year ( and then in 2012).

Jadakiss new album 2015