The Last Kiss

In a genre where albums frequently miss their street date, Jadakiss' The Last Kiss is an especially late hip-hop release, having been pushed back, retitled, and retooled numerous times. This problematic arrival shows too in the final product, but the problem may not be the much maligned rapper's ability or inspiration but the constant mishandling of his material. So many prime street cuts have been given away to comps, mixtapes, and soundtracks in the five years since Kiss of Death was released that only the slick, polished numbers remain, save the misleading kickoff "Pain & Torture." Two tracks later he's singing the silly "If you're real and you know it/Clap your hands" over an unsurprising Swizz Beats production, but it's "Grind Hard" that really disappoints, with the Mary J. Blige support coming off as standard. That's a first, but "What If" isn't a first at all, using the exact same structure as Kiss of Death's Nas collaboration "Why." One of the more interesting cuts, the heartfelt "Letter to B.I.G.," already appeared on the Notorious soundtrack, and the album's title is nonsense, as Jada had already declared his intention to keep going. Despite what the haters say, this is another missed opportunity for Jadakiss, a man whose best work never lands on the high-profile releases.