This came out in 2004 – or at least that’s when I got it. Here’s what I said about it back then (with some minor editing):
“I’ma play this Vandross / You gone take yo’ pants off,” rhymes Twista on Slow Jamz. And they say rap lyrics aren’t poetry.
OK, OK — so maybe Twista isn’t exactly Lord Byron. But this charismatic Chi-town motor-mouth is blowing up big-time thanks to that unlikely breakthrough hit — a naughty bit of meta-soul that honours boudoir seducers from Marvin Gaye to New Edition. And the rest of his third major-label full-length Kamikaze is pretty appealing too, thanks to Twista’s hyperspeed sing-song styling and wiseacre lyrics, aided and abetted by the lurchingly syncopated, bumptiously funky and aggressively freaky backing tracks of hotshot producers Kayne West and Toxic. Plus, Byron or not, you gotta give it up for a guy who pens lines like, “She got a light-skinned friend look like Michael Jackson / She got a dark-skinned friend look like Michael Jackson.” Now that’s poetry.
