Bad Bay South’s latest project, Yung Joc, has garnered a decent amount of buzz the past few months following the slightly surprising emergence of another Diddy South byproduct, Boyz N Da Hood (more specifically Young Jeezy).  But in an oversaturated Southern movement, it’s hard to see anything that really sets him apart from the rest.  As soon as the album’s intro jumps off, you instantly think “knock-off T.I.”.  The voice, delivery, and talking points all indicate an exact cloning of the alleged king of the South.  And we thought Bush was messing everything up.  While we were whining about the endless war, ridiculous gas prices, and the sinking economy, we didn’t realize that our great president was busy spearheading landmark cloning technology behind the scenes.  Sorry Mr. President, for talking bad about you.  We didn’t know.  Please forgive us.

   And how could I mention Bush without also mentioning Diddy?  They’re like two peas in a pod.  Name two others who could screw up so many things and still have so much influence?  Who else could ride other people’s coattails to such astonishing heights?  Bush had Cheney and the biggest gang in America (that Grand Ol’ Party), and Diddy had Biggie, Mary, Mase, and all of his artists.  I can’t hate on Diddy’s business hustle, but he’s largely lost his musical Midas touch.  So what does he do?  What every self-respecting, opportunistic businessman would do: copy the hottest thing out and resell it as new. 

     “Yung Joc City” is a cookie-cutter album, not unlike most of what we’ve heard coming from below the Mason-Dixon lately.  That’s not necessarily a bad thing (there’s plenty of fine music of that style, “King” and “Tha Carter II” to name two reviewed by this site), but if you’re gonna follow a hot trend, you have to be noticeably better than everything that’s already out.  That’s where this album falls short.  There’s no real “wow” factor.  Joc can drop some clever rhymes (“Got that micro-soft so they call me Bill Gates, iced links around my neck lookin’ like I build gates”), but they’re few and far between.  He needs to take more risks lyrically in order to distinguish himself, especially since he utilizes a nonchalant, lazy-drawl flow (sound familiar?) that won’t win any “Most Charismatic” awards.  With the climate the way it is, Joc gets lost in the crowd of sound-alikes.