Fabolous: Ghetto Fabolous : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

Brooklyn rapper Fabolous could make a living doing R&B cameos. His reclining delivery, unassuming voice, condensed slang and self-referential lyrics recall no one as much as ex-Puffy sidekick Mase. Fab even compares himself to the former Bad Boy: "OK, I rap a little faster/But do I really sound like I'll turn from a rapper to a pastor?" Musically, his debut, Ghetto Fabolous, features by-the-numbers danceable bounces from the Neptunes, Timbaland and Rockwilder. The predictable thug rhyme themes show up: Much of Ghetto Fabolous does nothing more than catalog delusions of toughness, fantasies of accommodating women and other wet dreams of the luxe life. But the corollary to hip-hop's holding pattern is that, if the genre itself isn't growing, the ways of talking about the same things are getting more inventive. On "Trade It All" he proposes marriage to a girl that "got me thinking about putting a car seat in back of the Benz." Ghetto Fabolous is the most entertaining argument for hip-hop excess to come along in a while, due to Fab's ability to add lyrical twists and turns to the genre. On "Keepin' It Gangsta," he raps, "I might not even drop/Just take my advance and make a small town in Cleveland pop." You may have heard it all before, but not quite like this.

KRIS EX
(RS 880 - October 25, 2001)