Bloggystyle -- The Greatest

The principal reason I ever bother listening to J.R. Writer is because of his name. After that, the reasons start to dwindle. As I've mentioned in other reviews of Diplomats stuff, JR Writer sounds like Cam on speed, and trying to listen to his verses can hurt one's head (nh).

But today, no homo juelz santana, someone gave me the heads up about the existence of Writer's Block Volume 2, before I even knew there was a Volume 1.

Anyway, he didn't want to waste hard drive space, so he wanted me to review and verify that this is trash, if it is. But I know a lot of people who come to this site are Dipset fans, and I'm learning to cope with that fact. So I'll go through the rigorous scientific approach.

Intro

Cam does an intro over what sounds like a phone telling us that JR "will be out this year." Out of what? The closet? After that intro, I honestly am not 100% sure if Writer or Cam is the one doing the track, since the beat is slow and thus so is the verse. Writer usually does faster verses, but I think this is him.

Call My Bluff Freestyle

*Aw, CHJYEAH* I thought that was Santana's stupid trademark. Anyway, Writer drops a 90 second freestyle over a decent beat. This wasn't bad.

Prove It (featuring Juelz Santana)

Writer keeps doing the Santana *CHJYEAH* thing, this time in honor of Juelz being on the track I guess. Writer drops a tight first verse and ok second/third verses over an average beat. Unfortunately, Santana only drops the hook on this track.

Lay Down

I couldn't get a version of this song to download off Morpheus My $7.99 copy of this mixtape somehow forgot to include this track.

1-800-JR-Writer

At the end of this track, which I guess has an ok verse, JR tells us to call him up at 1-800-JR-Writer. I wonder if he stole his cell phone, JR Ryder style.

Throw It Up

In the middle of the first verse, Writer actually cuts it off and says "I had to give y'all a little break off the song, give ya a little time to recover." The only recovery I could get from this was hitting next.

Gat Man Freestyle

Green Lantern does the intro on this track. It takes the beat from the 50 track off the Massacre. Writer's flow is impressive on this track, and it's pretty much necessary given the pace of the beat. This is one of the best cuts on this tape, despite how short it is.

Best Out, featuring Hell Rell

Hell Rell's back. His verses are basically just like an average slow Writer verse, except his voice is obviously different. I think Hell Rell's incapable of flowing any faster than a slow talking. Meanwhile, Writer does his vintage 100 rhymes per sentence that just make your head spin.

And the beats on this tape are way too similar.

Me

That's one of the least original track titles I've ever seen. A decent beat though. Writer makes a couple of interesting similes. One refers to Alicia and "pushing keys." Then there's "and I can get them chains off you faster than Abraham Lincoln," which is probably the cleverest line I've heard on this tape.

The problem is that when it comes to slow flows, Writer sounds way too much like Cam, and he's not as good at that as Cam, so he's practically irrelevant.

Live By The Codes

Although this beat will remind a listener of most of the other ones on this tape, I think this might be the best track on here. Writer doesn't do the typical rhyme overload this time, and his lyrics are subsequently more forceful.

Get It On

Nothing could have EVER prepared me for the first 15 seconds of that track. I almost hate to ruin the surprise for anyone considering downloading this stuff but let's just say it involves a high profile college basketball announcer who some might consider obnoxious.

*OH AMERICA ARE YOU SERIOUS. IT IS SHOWTIME BABY. HERE WE GO. RAM SLAM BAM JAM. ITS AWESOME BABY!*

It's hard to recover from that serinading to actually listen to the rest of the track. The beat's ok, although it reminds me of a bunch of the earlier stuff on this tape.

Pushing

This might be the most obnoxious track ever. Whoever produced this one should be shot on the spot.

Who's Nice Freestyle

If this was a freestyle, it was a decent one for the first 45 seconds or so.

Memorable Moments (featuring 40 Cal.)

Nothing about 40 Cal is memorable. But he's better on this track than he was on whichever Diplomatic Immunity 2 shits he was on, that's for sure.

But another monotonous beat made sure the only thing memorable about this was how fast I turned it off.

Give Me A Second

"It sounds like we're going into overdrive overdrive." I don't get it either. And now even JR is doing that Juelz *CHJYEAH* stuff in the background. This is one of those verses where JR rhymes almost every word and it's impossible to comprehend what the fuck he's talking about, and he's doing it over a bland loop.

Cold As Ice

I think this is the first time a piano is used on this tape, but only for the first 30 seconds, where they have some black man talking some stuff. This beat is a bit more prevalent than the other ones, and Writer's verse is mediocre.

Harder Then Ever, featuring Hell Rell

The hook on this track is barely audible. Hell Rell's considerably better on this shit than Writer, even with his lazy flow. At least that gives him the chance to word out lines like "Get Midwest love from Midwest thugs, and my niggas they lift up weight and bench press drugs." Update: DJX pointed out the necessity of a major no homo for this whole paragraph, so here it is. MAJOR NO HOMO.

Mezmorized

Sure as shit, this beat samples the same shit Ja and Ashanti did for their Mesmerize, which actually made the VH1&Blender Top 50 Awesomely Bad songs list. I saw the program yesterday and Ja was there at like 38. I'd say it was a good choice, except no variation of the word awesome should have been associated with it.

I guess this is Writer's attempt at a chick song. Whatever.

Something Epic

You might get your hopes up when you hear the Jay sample "We invite you to something epic." But then Writer quickly says "Me" and goes ahead to drop a verse over the beat from Can I Live. This is a decent changeup if only because the other beats to this point sound too alike.

And you'll never believe this, but Writer doesn't flow over the beat as well as Jay did.

Back In The Zone

I swear to God someone took one beat and made 20 modifications and had Writer put a verse on each modification.

Hell Of A Ryder (featuring Ron)

I was waiting the whole time to download this track because I wanted to know what kind of scrub goes simply by the name "Ron." What's next? Someone's going to come up with the moniker Joe Smith?

I was actually hoping Ron referred to Ron Artest, but of course it wasn't. Ron actually sounds like Cam, but I don't think it's him. And I'm not going to waste anymore time with this track because it's not very good.

9 Minute Freestyle

This track is 8:44 long. Can someone say false advertising?

All kidding aside, this shit is pretty tight, especially the first few minutes. Writer is actually helped by having a faint beat that doesn't factor much into the track.

Unquestionably this is the most impressive track on the tape.

Down & Out Freestyle (featuring Fred Money$)

I guess Fred Money is Writer's 15 year old brother. If the kid's only 15, that first verse he drops is all the more impressive. Fred Money's voice is also deeper than his older brother, who I think is 19.

Harlem Freestyle

"History in the making this summer" in reference to his impending album. Right.
Given the 8-9 minute freestyle, Writer obviously wasn't going to top that with this. This freestyle is average at best.

Bonus Track: 1 Thing, featuring Amerie

Before I turned this on, I have to admit that I thought this had the potential to be the worst song ever. After all, Amerie is absolutely horrible, and the 1 Thing track is one of the worst songs I have ever fucking heard.

This beat is the epitome of schizophrenia on wax. The idea actually could have been kind of funny if Writer had kept talking about nailing Amerie as she does that little orgasm sounding shit in the background.

Unfortunately, the "official Diplomat remix" that Writer refers to is simply that first 45 second verse of his, followed by the entire Amerie track, so all her "verses" actually show up on this track. That definitely fucks everything up. Why is this a bonus track anyway?

Well, this mixtape answered some questions, but not others. I can now tell that someone not to waste his hard drive space on this mixtape.

On a few tracks, Writer tells us to call him up at 1-800-JRWRITER. Yes, that's 8 digits but I called it anyway. All I got was a voice automated woman telling me to call a talk line to talk to "some exciting people." I'm guessing those exciting people aren't the Diplomats.

But JR Writer's tape still didn't answer the one burning question I had throughout listening to this.

How the hell did Isaiah Ryder get the nickname "J.R." anyway?