album review

Some artists land record contracts because they sound like nobody else. Others bag them because they sound all too much like somebody else.

Stick Yung Joc in the latter category. The 24-year-old Atlanta rapper got inked to Diddy's Bad Boy label after the label lost its hottest emcee, Young Jeezy (of Boyz N da Hood fame) to Def Jam Records for his solo career. It didn't hurt that Joc also bore a resemblance to Atlanta's other top emcee: T.I.

Between that connection, and his No. 1 novelty single (the happily nonsensical "It's Goin' Down"), Joc's debut CD sold over 900,000 copies. Now he's back with a chaser, but it shows no more depth or distinction than the first go-round.

Joc continues to exploit Southern rap cliches, with sloganeering choruses, simplistic verse and gimmicky hooks. Many of the cuts seem to be going for the annoyance factor on purpose. They're full of hyper, repetitious chants sped up, or slowed down, to sound as infantile as possible. True, you can't avoid the hooks in songs like "Bottle Poppin'," "Coffee Shop" or "Pak Man." But it's in the same way you can't get away from a recurring nightmare.

Joc sounds particularly callow when trading verses with the genuinely harder, gruffer guest voices featured here, from the Game, Rick Ross or Jim Jones. He even gets upstaged by his benefactor, Diddy, on the track "Hell Yeah," a ruinous sign. The rapper Gorilla Zoe, who replaced Young Jeezy in Boyz N da Hood, outshines the star attraction, too, in several cameos, through his charmingly deliberate delivery.

Joc's subject matter isn't what you'd call original. Taking off from the title, there's all too much talk about hustling. And though he opens his song "Momma" decrying the cliche of odes to maternal devotion, that didn't stop him from delivering one anyway.

One cut survives the mire. "BYOB" has everything a great novelty song needs: a rash of killer hooks, some great sound effects and a terse slogan you can't get out of your head. Unfortunately, all that comes courtesy of the genius production duo the Neptunes. The cut is practically emcee-proof.

Given that, make sure to download "BYOB." As for the rest: Accept no substitutes YUNG JOC "HUSTLENOMICS"(BAD BOY SOUTH)

doesnt even seem worth listening too