Music Review: Jean Grae - "This Week"
| Published 10/29/04

Graphic by: Doni Neel

1. "Intro"- This is a pretty strong way to start the album. It begins with a guy named Tracy talking about how good Jean Grae is, followed by a quick little freestyle rhyme from Jean herself, where’s she’s basically saying she’s back and to get ready for the album to start. It's pretty basic; the best part is Jean’s flow. She identifies this track as being associated with Monday, which make sense, I guess, because it’s the first song, and in that sense it’s like the first day of the week.

2. "A-Alikes"- This is one the best cuts, I think. It’s got a good hook and real simple piano-laced beat. It reminds me of an old Foxy Brown song called "Holy Matrimony" from her first album. It’s hard not to compare Jean Grae to other female rappers, since there aren’t really that many out there.

3. "Cuervo Loco" (Skit)- This is just a short little skit. It’s nothing special. It’s just a guy on Jean’s answering machine talking about how drunk he is and how he just drank four 40s by himself. It sounds somewhat familiar; I think most of us have gotten these drunken messages from friends. That’s one thing about this album: you can relate to the subject matter. She talks about things that have to do with everybody’s daily life instead of how she’s such a gangster and she kills a lot of people and all those clichés.

4. "Going Crazy"- This beat sounds like some discarded Snoop Dogg track but thankfully, the lyrics are better than an average Snoop solo song. This album, and especially this song, has a more mainstream feel than I thought it would. I had a feeling it would be more hardcore with straight up lyrics and beats instead of singing choruses.

5. "Style Wars"- This is like a Ruff Ryders song, with Jean sounding like Eve and Block McCloud on the hook sounding like Drag-On. It’s a good song, but it still sounds mainstream, like something that would be on a DJ Clue tape. The skit right before the song tells us that this song is supposed to feel like Tuesday.

6. "Not Like Me"- This is a pretty slow song about Jean hooking up at a bar. She’s a good story teller here.

7. "Supa Luv"- This song follows a popular trend: having a sped-up sample of an old soul song in the background. It’s no surprise that this track is produced by 9th Wonder, who has done tracks for Jay-Z, one of the first to make this production style popular on "The Blueprint" in 2001. Really, the Wutang Clan did the soul sample thing back in the mid-90s, but it’s only recently gotten extremely popular. Go figure.

8. "Give It Up"- Here’s another slow soul-love song. It has a very 70s feel to it. It would probably be best to listen to when you’ve just broken up with somebody and are in some kind of altered state of mind.

9. "Whatever"- This is another one of the best. It’s really short and has a rougher edge to it. She does sound a lot like Eve on it. I’ve got to say I like her a lot better than Eve though, mostly because her lyrics are more entertaining.

10. "The Wall"- There’s a real simple beat here, and it's another tight track with a lot of clever references ranging from Spalding Gray to Britney Murphy. It’s a fairly personal song. She’s basically talking about how she has a wall up to keep out the outside world and she doesn’t like to give away a lot about herself.

11. "Before the Spot" (Skit)- In this skit, Jean is talking to some guy or girl with a really high voice. It’s pretty annoying.

12. "You Don’t Want It"- This sounds like another Eve Song. Jean really hits the beat good on this, though. She knows how to ride a track. This song is supposed to represent Wednesday, and I can see why. The beat is boring and uneventful, just like a Wednesday.

13. "Watch Me"- It’s a boring beat, but Jean’s lyrics elevate it with her entertaining references to Tom Hanks, Whitney Houston and Bobby Brown. 14. "P.S."- This is one of the best, and it’s the last official song of the album. It feels like a Friday to me. Anyway, it’s about her writing letters to old friends that she hasn’t talked to in a long time. The reason it feels like Friday is that we hear her friends calling her to come on at the end. It’s like she’s finishing up business before the weekend. That's what it feels like to me, at least. This is the last track listed on the back of the CD, but there are two bonus tracks on the album, too.

15. "Fyre Blazer" (Bonus Track)– This what I expected most of the album to sound like. It’s more of an underground, lyrical kind of track, where she’s just spittin' with no hook. It’s one of my favorites on here.

16. "Don’t Rush Me" (Bonus Track)- This has the more mainstream sound again, but it’s still tight. It's also one of the best tracks on here, and it’s a bonus track. That’s kind of strange.