via New Orleans Times-Picayune
"Too Hood" is B.G.'s first studio release since '06, and he takes a minute to address the absence on the track "Back To The Money": "Everywhere I go, they ask me, Gizzle, where you been/ You ain't looking hard enough, I tell 'em, look again."
In real life, B.G. moved his family to Detroit for two years after Hurricane Katrina. He wanted a break from the New Orleans scene even in evacuation.
"I didn't want to be where everybody else was at," he said. "There was just too many people that I knew in Houston and Atlanta and I just wanted to go a little further away."
"Too Hood" languished in music-industry limbo for almost two years. The rapper T.I., who has an executive producer credit on the album, helped B.G. put together his deal with Atlantic Records. But T.I. was arrested on federal gun charges in October 2007. B.G. suspects that Atlantic was nervous about putting out his album without T.I. being available to help promote it.
"I'm used to dropping an album a year, every eight, nine months. I guess they figured I needed T.I. to hold my hand. But T.I. went to the CEO of Atlantic and was like, 'I grew up on B.G. B.G. can carry his own weight - he's a legend in the game.'"
The hottest songs on the album find B.G. reaching into the wayback machine for heavy-hitter production chops. Craig "KLC" Lawson, who cranked out hits in the '90's as part of No Limit Records' Beats by the Pound team, and Cash Money Records legend Mannie Fresh each produced two tracks. "My Hood," a pledge of allegiance to the New Orleans streets, is buoyed by Fresh's trademark shiny synthesizers. KLC's "Hit The Block & Roll" features a sample that might be the best use of a screaming electric guitar in hip-hop since producer Rick Rubin (via Slayer) helped the Beastie Boys fight for their right to party. If anyone questioned B.G.'s star power, "Too Hood" is the high-wattage answer.
Read the full album review here:
B.G. keeps it street on a new album, 'Too Hood 2 Be Hollywood'
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