With poorly chosen tracks and an overall lack of flow, DJ Clue’s “The Professional 2” makes one hope that he will not be coming out with a third CD anytime soon.
The list of musical artists DJ Clue brings together on this compilation CD is very impressive, but he fails to showcase their true talent. The tracks chosen have lagging beats which frequently do not match up with the vocals. Many also sound as if they had been produced on a Casio keyboard.
There is a deficit of flow throughout the CD as each track sounds radically different from the one before. This trend continues through each of the 23 songs, and to make his sophomoric talent even more apparent, the last track features musical artist Ty Shaun rapping over the phone.
If all this is not bad enough, a loud echoing voice, most likely DJ Clue himself, interjects annoyingly into each song with a “yeah,” “that’s right,” “what,” etc. By adding his own voice, DJ Clue draws more attention to his empty shout-outs than to the actual music of the rappers he chose for the CD. Despite this fact, numerous tracks give shout-outs to this less-than-professional DJ.
“The Professional 2” follows in the footsteps of producers like Funkmaster Flex, who produced several successful mix tapes. Unlike DJ Clue, Funkmaster Flex was able to bring together interesting and diverse tracks that one might never have listened to together. He put them together with excellent flow that almost never seemed choppy. He also mixed in his own voice in between tracks and not over the song itself. DJ Clue would do much better by studying his predecessor’s style.
On a positive note, the opening track – “Back 2 Life 2001” featuring Mary J. Blige and Jadakiss – is excellent. Blige does a beautiful a cappella and her voice is an interesting choice for the introduction. Seasoned artists such as Snoop Dogg and Busta Rhymes add a couple of acceptable tracks to the CD.
All in all, it is confusing how DJ Clue goes to the likes of Method Man, Eminem and Foxy Brown to contribute to this poorly put together compilation. The skills of DJ Clue and the other producers on the CD are anything but professional.
