“Now there’s a whole museum of Hov MCers/Everybody’s dupin’ the
flow,” Jay-Z bragged on “The Bounce,” a cut from 2002’s The
Blueprint 2: The Gift & the Curse. Little did he know the
museum wouldn’t be shutting down anytime soon. A few years later,
rapper/producer Shawn “MIMS” Mims would make the scene with “This Is
Why I’m Hot,” an ephemeral,
hopscotching-through-various-rap-production-styles single; the
accompanying album, Music Is My Savior, was essentially Jay-Z
lite. Jay-Z and MIMS are both N.Y.C. natives; there’s a possibility
that the similarities in their rapping styles are purely geographical.
But while a more confident artist might have done everything in his
power to distinguish himself from Biggie Smalls’ spiritual heir, MIMS
seems hell-bent on turning himself into Jigga’s creased carbon
copy.
The flattery-by-imitation continues unabated on Guilt, where
MIMS presents himself as a hardened gangsta. First single “Move (If You
Wanna),” built on a distorted sample looped and re-looped on itself,
finds our protagonist flaunting shopworn clichés to establish
his dominance and ad libbing his name: “Love Rollercoaster” is a
thematic retread of Pharrell and Kanye West’s “Number One” —
itself a rewiring of too many my-girl’s-lonely-because-I’m-out-hustling
b-sides to list here — peppered with “ah-ah-alrights” stolen from
Jay-Z’s “American Gangster.” The rest — from “On and On” to
“Makin’ Money” — is similarly bland filler, which is saying
something. If we were still living in the pre-file-sharing era,
Guilt might serve to tide over those awaiting this summer’s
Blueprint 3 release — except that we aren’t. —
Ray Cummings
This article appears in Apr 15-21, 2009.
