Andre Nickatina - Conversation with a Devil [CD & DVD] (CD)

All Music Guide

With Conversations with a Devil, Andre Nickatina returns to center stage with an ambitious "concept" record recording the life of our protagonist, Dre Dog. Unfortunately, that's about as good as it gets. The first song is just absolutely repulsive, made up of rhymes that could have been taken from a middle school poetry workshop. Rhyming Sugar Ray with Sade is a bit shy of genius, but right from the get go it is blatantly obvious that Madonna recruited Nickatina to write the lyrics for her rap in "American Life". With such bouts of prosity like " It was 1984, I was on a plane that was a bout to soar" and "my girl friend drinks Coronas and knows about the Iotollah" Emninem and Nas can rest peacefully at night, knowing that their crown will not be challenged from Nicky. The monotone delivery is reminiscent of some old school MCs, but even old schools delivered with flare and style. This delivers a smattering of cottage cheese and water when expecting a sirloin steak. The production is me...diocre at best, with the vocals being about four thousand decibles louder than the music within the mix. "Dice of Life" is a like a bad irish jig/pirate tune straight out of a three star themed restaraunt , with some wretched lyrics bragging about hanging with Shaq and how Mike Tyson love custom autos. Even LFO was more poetic when they reminisced about girls in Abercrombie and Fitch. Things get better thankfully as Nickatina hits his stride on "Soul of a Coke Dealer", where he shines and keeps going without breathing until the last beats. Unfortunately, things return to their normal form with "The God and the Stripper". Complete with 808 drum machine shuffles with a poorly strummed latin flared guitar, it's a love story about a powerful man in his community and a woman who does certain things for a living. "Train with No Love" speaks of his time in prison being sodomized,losing his wife and various other unfortunate incidents before turning his life around. Read more Less