After finally buying this album after it was released about 2 weeks after it was in the US. I was a little bit disappointed. Not because it’s a bad album or that I didn’t enjoy the album. It’s just that due to all the reviews and such I read you would have thought it would be an Illmatic.

Nether the less it’s a very good album and one of the best of 2006.
Best Tracks are: Kick Push, Might Be Okay, The Instrumental, The Cool and American Terrorist.

The best tracks are some of the best you'll hear and are up to the likes of 'Jesus Walks', '2 words' etc from College Dropout. However the middle range tracks just arent as good as that other fantastic debut album from Kanye.

Best Tracks- 9.5/10
Worst Tracks- 7.5/10
Middle Range Tracks- 7.5/10
Rappng/Singing- 9/10
Originality- 4/5
Music- 4.5/5

I haven’t been a fan of Fergie since her joining the Black Eyed Peas and them getting worse from her joining them, and also that when I heard her first solo song “London Bridge” it really didn’t impress me. However I am looking at this album without bias.

I’ll get straight to the point. I don’t like her raping at all in this album and I think it ruins tracks such as “Here I Come”. There are tracks with good music but I just dislike her rapping accent a lot. The best tracks on the album are easily tracks were Fergie is just singing due the fact that she can do this a lot better and it doesn’t annoy the S*** out of me.

While the opening two tracks are horrible there are standard-good tracks including “All That I Got (The Make Up Song) (Feat. Will.i.am)”, “Losing My Ground” and “Pedestal”.

The best track is “Glamorous (Feat Ludacris)” and probably the only track I really enjoy, although I was enjoying “Mary Jane Shoes (Feat Rita Marley and the I-Threes)” until the tempo change into Rock/Punk which ruins the song. So then I changed the song.

The Dutchess is uneven. It doesn’t really have a proper genre. There are pop, R&B, Hip-Hop, Reggeeish and Rockish tracks. Most albums will actually have a genre meaning you will like most songs if you are into this genre, but in The Dutchess you might like a few but I very much doubt you will like most. You don’t know what you will get. Another criticism I have is that this really didn’t need to have a Parental Advisory sticker on it. For example in “Mary Jane Shoes” she says MF. There is really no need for it.

If you are really a fan of the Black Eyed Peas recent work you may like this as Will.i.am produces a lot of tracks on this album of which have a familiar sound.
It’s not a terrible album but it’s far from excellent.

Best Tracks- 7/10
Worst Tracks- 2/10
Middle Range Tracks- 4/10
Rappng/Singing- 5/10
Originality- 3/5
Music- 3/5

A rap album can’t just be good because it has good rapping in it. Many people have rated King high because of T.I’s Rap talent. Musically though ‘King’ is a bit boring to be honest and it’s not original at all and some tracks are a bit too long. Although the best tracks are very good, there are not a lot of these, “What You Know”, “Why You Wanna” and ”Goodlife Ft. Pharrell and Common” the only real standouts. Although there are other good tracks such as ‘King Back’ and ‘Live in the Sky" Ft. Jamie Foxx’, too name a couple. There are too many mid range tracks to give King a high score.
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Best Tracks- 9/10
Worst Tracks- 4/10-reversed rating-so 10/10 means worst tracks are great
Middle Range Tracks-5/10
Rappng/Singing- 8/10
Originality- 2/5
Music- 3/5

30.5/50

Although many hip-hop purists hate Chingy, and to this I can understand why, as the majority of his raps are about chicks, asses and definitely doesn't have the lyrical writing skills of a Nas, Tupac.etc, and also goes towards mainstream rap than underground/social conscious rap, I have to admit I do like a lot of his singles, including Right Thurrr, Holiday Inn, One Call Away, Don't Worry and his new single Pullin' Me Back. It's the rest of the songs on the album though that need to be half good. Having heard Powerballin' apart from the occasional song this was not the case. Would Hood Star be any better?

It is probably a step forward from Powerballin', it has less songs to try to limit the bad, and somewhat successfully does this. Yet it doesn't fully. When you only have 13 songs most should be quite good.

I don't normally include Intro's in best song lists, but on Hood Star it is a song/intro therefore we will include it. "Intro (Ridin Wit Me)" is the highlight of the album; it has a good beat and makes you get excited about what's too come. As usual the track after the intro ("Hands Up"), isn't half bad, but then it starts to go downhill a tad. The next three tracks ("Club Gettin Crowded (ft. Three 6 Mafia)", "Nike Aurrs & Crispy Tees" and "Bounce That") are uninspiring and don't really help your view on Chingy. But then it starts to improve. Track six ("Cadillac Door (ft. Midwest City)")(actually about serious things) and "Pullin Me Back (ft. Tyrese)" are more R&B brands of tracks and are the pick of the album. The other six tracks are a mixture of good and bad with "Dem Jeans (ft. Jermaine Dupri)", "Let Me Luv U" and "Brand New Kicks (ft. Mannie Fresh)" being the pick of the rest.

I don't exactly understand the Hood-Star aspect of the album. There doesn't really seem to be a consistency of difference in sound between the 2 "sides". I'm a bit confused about that. Nevertheless Hood Star is a sensible album and is a lot more constant than Powerballin'. However I don't think its best tracks beat Powerballin's best. I do like Chingy voice so I do hope he can have an outstanding album one day but I think he has to work towards his strengths. If you look at his best tracks I reckon the majority would be more R&B based, and his next album should have more of these.

Hood Star is practically a dance/rap album that mixes good with bad. If you are a Chingy fan I think you will love this album. If you are a bit up and down about his past material Hood Star is well worth a try, and if you hate him I guess this won't be for you.

There are plenty of better rap albums out there no doubt. However as mentioned if you are looking to have a fun time with music and not listen to serious lyrics this is a quality album for that.

I'd never heard of Ellington Jordan(previously went by the name of Fugi in his previous 2 Lp's) in my life, so this album caught me by surprise. It’s a Blues album but crosses other genres such as rap, R&B, gospel, jazz, soul and funk.

Almost Home features 12 tracks that are all very different in their own right. Musically and lyrically. Some will move you and some will make you dance. When I first got Almost Home it didn’t leave my mp3 player for weeks going on months.

The Best Tracks are 'Revelations', 'Dirty Water', 'Jesus', 'He Don't Like Em', 'Dance' and 'I am' but while all are not perfect, there is not one track on the album that I don't enjoy. Not only the fact that every track is enjoyable, it is definitely a different original sound than most music out there and is unquestionably a much more original sound than what you’ll hear in any mainstream music today.

A refreshing underrated, underachieving album that I would recommend to anyone into soul, R&B or gospel music.