Easy Mo Bee: Now Or Never: Odyssey 2000

Super-producer Easy Mo Bee is best known for his sleek, cinematic work on Notorious B.I.G.'s justly revered debut, Ready To Die, a brilliant autobiographical concept album from one of hip-hop's greatest storytellers. But conceptual unity and brilliant rhymes are sorely lacking from Bee's sprawling, uneven solo debut Odyssey 2000, and in their place is an overreaching mish-mash of guest appearances, instrumentals, songs from R.I.F. (Bee's lyrically challenged R&B/hip-hop outfit), and showcases for unpromising newcomers such as 14-year-old Jinx and Da Nation. Like Deric "D-Dot" Angelettie's similarly muddled Madd Rapper album, Odyssey 2000 suffers from a profound identity crisis, never sure whether it's a vehicle for Easy Mo Bee the producer, Easy Mo Bee the rapper for R.I.F., or Easy Mo Bee's flunkies. Ultimately, it's a little of all three, and it's unsatisfying on nearly every level. Odyssey 2000 has its moments, most notably "Time To Shine (Blackout)," a collaboration between Soul Survivors and Craig Mack that's catchy enough to compensate for its regrettable "1999 / last chance to shine" chorus, and "We Pledge Allegiance," an agreeably dramatic slice of gangsta-rap from Cocoa Brovaz and Mobb Deep's Prodigy. But the album's low points are even more prominent, from the tepid R&B of Dave Morris and Da Nation's flaccid "Always Be There For You" to "Sound Of My Heat," a slick, anemic duet between Snoop Dogg and newcomer N.Y. Glaze, a very poor man's Eve. Never a disaster, Easy Mo Bee's debut is just a messy disappointment from a talented producer who might be better off staying behind the boards.