Hanging Too Tight With ‘Homies’

Cronyism has overrun hip-hop to the extent that where you’re from has become less important than whom you roll with. Today, survival-hungry rappers run in creative cliques, with several artists riding the popularity wave of one stellar peer. With notable exceptions--the Wu-Tang Clan’s spinoffs and reunion double CD and Master P’s entire No Limit Records roster--originality usually suffers and redundancy rules when like minds coalesce.

And that’s the problem with this Houston storyteller’s aptly titled fifth disc. Featuring a cadre of homies (Ice Cube, 2Pac, et al, plus artists on Scarface’s Interface label), the exhaustive 30 songs of ghetto-real Southern fables on this two-disc collection are more marketing vehicle than accomplished solo effort. As expected, Scarface mines heartfelt psycho-dramatics over emotive funk on two solo tracks (“Ma Homiez” and “Greed”). But the other lyricists’ hard-core posturing reeks of gangsta overkill. Save for Devin’s hazy, twang-rap on “Boo Boo’n” and visits by former Geto Boy Bushwick Bill and the Luniz’s Yukmouth, the two-hour collection is about 15 songs too long.