Jermaine Dupri compiled
Jermaine Dupri
Y’All Know What This Is . . . The Hits
(Island/Def Jam)
Jermaine Dupri deserves acclaim because he has been a notable producer for 15 years. But if this 10-song collection were to be exhibit A, it’d imply nothing Dupri has done is classic.
Dupri doesn’t do big beats, punishing bass, skittering percussion, or mind-bending samples. (Or, if he does, people haven’t noticed.) His first runaway success, “Jump,” wasn’t even so much due to him as a direct-hit novelty he nurtured: a backwards-dressing, “Double Trouble” combo called Kris Kross. Of the nine remaining tracks, only two caused any considerable waves outside of the R&B community: Usher’s “Confessions II” and Mariah Carey’s adult-contemporary strike, “We Belong Together.” He scored number ones for both Monica (“The First Night”) and Bow Wow (“Like You” featuring Ciara), though those seem now to have benefitted from the absence of a legit number-one contender (kinda like the Houston Rockets’ mid-’90s titles). Def Jam fills the rest of the album with ho-hum secondary singles featuring MC Lyte, Ludacris, Jay-Z, Dru Hill, and Chingy.
Perhaps licensing was an issue, but this myopic history ignores his work with TLC, the first Usher album, Cam’ron, Lil Kim, Da Brat, Xscape, Lil Jon, or Alicia Keys — to say nothing of his behind-the-scenes work in Atlanta hip-hop. Anyone interested in Dupri probably has all his key works anyway, so it’s hard to find reason to endorse such an empty compilation.
— Steve Forstneger
