Review by Josh Carter
3½ stars out of 4
Foxy Brown has accomplished more at the age of 22 than most artists do
before they're 30. She burst onto the scene on LL Cool J's 'I Shot Ya',
and it was clear then that it was Foxy's world, and we're just living
in it. After rhyming on various songs, including the remix of Toni Braxton's
'You're Makin Me High,' Brown was a bona-fide MC even before she dropped
her debut album, Ill NaNa, which went over platinum status. Now Foxy's
returned to the rap scene with 'Chyna Doll,' and it's a great album,
aside from a few bad songs. Various cameos from Jay Z, DMX, Mya, Total,
Juvenile only make the album better. 'Chyna White' starts us off (after
an intro), and in this song Brown compares herself to the drug China
White (how special.) 'My Life' is a great song in which Brown recounts
her past, including her thoughts of suicide, her infamous spitting in
the face of a reporter, what people think of her, and her ill-fated
friendship with Lil Kim ('you was my sister/we used to dream
together/how we could make it real big/do our thing together/Thelma and
Louise together/...now we don't even speak/went our seperate ways/seperate
lives/lost friendship for pride.') 'Hot Spot' is the party song on the
album, and Mya adds her sweet vocals to 'JOB.' Total harmonizes on the
showstopper 'I Can't,' and her partner in crime Jay Z shows up on 'Bonnie
and Clyde Part 2.' '4-5-6' is the best track, in which she rhymes with
Beanie Siegal and Memphis Bleek, and the rest of the album kinda slows
down, with an extremely lame (and flat out bad) song with her brother
Pretty Boy called 'Can U Feel Me Baby.' The album closes with 'It's Hard
Being Wifee' with Noreaga, and Brown warns fellow females 'any bitch
could luck up and have a kid,' but tells off that oh-so pesky ex of his
'and on top of all this bullshit/i'm still his chick.' Even though Jay
Z may have left his 'Bonnie' (Brown) to fend for herself when 'Chyna Doll'
didn't do as well as they had hoped (even though it went past platinum
status), by the looks of her new album, 'Broken Silnce', Brown's doing
just fine on her own.
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