{grate 3} About a year ago, Bay Area legend Yukmouth bought a massive
ad in the Source announcing the release of his new album, Million Dollar
Mouthpeice. Well, a year — and maybe a couple of spell checks — later, the
album is finally out without any typographical errors in the title.
The first track, “West Coast Don,” continues the Yukmouth
tradition of awfully executed cinematic intros (listen to Godzilla to see what
I mean). This time, Yukmouth does his best Vito Corleone impression. Simply
put, Don Yuk is mad at the state of West Coast rap because “guys are fucking
up.”
Yukmouth has reason to be mad: He bumped Michael Jackson
from the charts years ago with “I Got Five On It,” and hasn’t made waves
outside the Bay Area since. To put things in perspective, that song is so
famous that Yuk still enjoys a strong following in Germany (“Ich Bin High,
Homey,” the German remix to “Five On It,” is truly surreal).
On this album, Yuk does what Yuk knows best — bragging about
his clothes and his jewelry; if you let him tell the story, he has a lot of the
best kinds of both.
However, Yukmouth steps out of his comfort zone on this
album, rapping over a beat from Young L of the Pack on “Shine Like Me.” He even
has some bizarrely honest and, dare I say, tender moments on “Star in the Sky,”
where Yuk describes growing up the son of a crack addict and sleeping on the
streets. It’s surprisingly touching stuff from the man whose most romantic song
to date is called “
This album doesn’t quite solve all the problems that West
Coast rap has been dealing with (sorry, Don Yuk); in all honesty it will get
little play outside of the Bay Area and
(I’m serious about this). But if you are a Yukmouth fan, you’ll enjoy
everything from the street bangers, like the cleverly named “Drug Dealer,” to
the incredibly cheesy Yuk club songs, like “Make it Rain.”
Perhaps the only serious letdown is that Yukmouth is not
wearing a stolen G-Unit chain on the cover of the album, which he had promised
to do a couple years back. Maybe next time.
