On Top Of Our Game

Dem Franchize Boyz
“On Top Of Our Game”
(So So Def/Virgin)
4.5 Stars


There are a few universal laws in hip-hop. If you put Nate Dogg on your hook, you’re guaranteed a hit. LL Cool J will never go away. And when a new trend emerges in hip-hop, Jermaine Dupri will always rip it off egregiously. This last rule applies to Dem Franchize Boyz, an Atlanta-based group that represents Mr. Dupri’s latest business interest.

The new album starts out with a Pimp C sample: “Make my music for the boyz with the O’s, the old-school pros and the strip club hoes,” But in this case, the legendary Mr. Butler forgot to add, “for the Harvard freshman doing the white man’s overbite, furiously getting crunk in front of his mirror, jumping up and down and…” – well, you get the idea. In accordance with our “guilty pleasures” issue, I want to espouse the virtues of Dem Franchize Boyz and their second album, “On Top Of Our Game.”

Dupri, the Boyz, D4L (whose “Laffy Taffy” blew up all over the country and whose cheap, minimalist sound precipitated the formation of this group), et al. have managed to make a club trend out of really weak drum machines and minimal production. It’s good business, and it works. This is the kind of music that you say you hate, but which secretly you wish you could play at full volume without fear of being smacked.

I want to stress that this is not poetry. Assemble a crew of faceless rappers, choruses of “You know what it is, ho(16x),” three strokes on a keyboard and you’ve got a club hit. Repeat it 12 times, and you’ve got a follow-up album for one of Atlanta’s worst-spelling crews.

Drenched in drawl and intentionally uneven overdubs, the album is a smartly assembled piece of Southern pop-rap. All of the tracks are the same tempo, but they prevent boredom by keeping it short-it’s only 12 songs. Jermaine Dupri keeps his garbage Diddy-esque cameos to a minimum. I can’t hate on it.

Well, actually, I can. It is commercial and mindless. I just choose not to hate on it. The fact is, when one of the four Boyz says, “I’m the best there ever was,” it’s tongue-in-cheek; he follows that with “We gotta keep this thing goin’, as long as we can.” They have no illusions about their disposability. The light-hearted, by-the-books way this album plays out ends up better than one would expect. And long after 24-inch rims become passé, the Boyz, and our experiences listening to them, will be made immortal with their cries of “Lean Wit It, Rock Wit It.”

Haters ought to direct their queries elsewhere. These rappers are barely out of their teen years, with a record deal, a hit single, and a mic. Screaming “Oh I Think They Like Me” over and over again is only natural. Furthermore, we only have ourselves to blame for this kind of material lacking artistic merit.

We all bought Lil’ Jon’s and Mike Jones’ albums, and we have to pay the price for all the crunk copycats that follow in their wake. Sometimes they are good (Dem Franchize Boyz), and sometimes they are bad (also Dem Franchize Boyz, depending on your state of mind). This album is just another way for Dupri to get rich off of someone else’s original sound. But in this case, that’s okay.

The best part of this album is that it’s all been heard before. With the possible exception of “(Bitch) Stop Calling Me” (which is a very chivalrous follow-up to the nasty “As Freaky As She Wanna Be”) The Boyz do absolutely nothing to expand the vocabulary or widen the horizons of hip-hop in the slightest bit.

After all, the most musically adventurous track is called “Ridin’ Rims”. And that’s just fine. The deep-fried keyboards, the sweat-drenched white tees and open-top convertibles of Jizzal Man, Parlae, Pimpin and Buddie are exactly what I need in this freezing weather. You know what it is, ho.



—Staff writer J. Samuel Abbott can be reached at abbott@fas.harvard.edu