Buck The World
Put Young Buck and his mentor 50 Cent together and you get a whole lot more than the artistic equivalent of an item and a half off the dollar menu. The two of them proved it on 2004'sStraight Outta Ca$hville,and it holds forBuck the World, a disc that clamps itself to the G-Unit sound even while playing yo-yo with it. "Hold On," Fitty's sole contribution here, pops with the same menacing energy that informedCa$hville,but elsewhere Buck defects from the unit (where are four-star gangstas Lloyd Banks and Tony Yayo?) in favor of mostly successful team-ups with Snoop, TI, 8Ball, Lyfe Jennings and, kind of surprisingly, Ky-Mani Marley. (And that's just naming a few--clearly, Buck's phone calls are getting returned these days.) The extra-unit collaborations sound like natural enough dabblings for the sake of musical growth, especially the sizzling soul glance-back "Haters," featuring Kokane. But even though he's eased up on the G-pedal, 50's guiding principles poke up throughout: besides their hot beats, what binds these songs is authenticity. Buck may have temporarily lost sight of the corner, but he knows how to keep it real.-Tammy La Gorce