Music Review: Jeru Da Damaja – The Hammer

Jeru Da Damaja is one of those rappers that started off hot and cooled off too fast. After making two arguably superior/classic albums, he broke off his situation with DJ Premier. After that, there was the decline in prominence and musical quality. Now, he is back to flex his lyrical muscle. Too bad that he didn’t come harder than he did on The Hammer, no matter how long he has been gone.

I think one of the biggest problems is that the production on this album is no match for what he did with DJ Premier. Then again, a lot of the production is just mediocre overall.  “So Raw” does nothing to enhance his rhymes. The same can be said for the cosmic slop-gone-awry on “Point Blank”. The best production on the entire album is the dope sample flip on “Solar Flare”. If Jeru wants to be taken seriously, the least he could do is have doper production.

Rhyme wise, Jeru is doing what Jeru does. The thing about it is that he isn’t coming with some profound choruses. Nor is he making any lyrics that are going to be rewound for their punchlines and similes. But, he is educating with his rhymes. At least we can say that his rhymes are still intact.

So, what we have with The Hammer is dope throwback rhymes over mostly lackluster tracks. If Jeru plans on making more music, he needs to make sure that he has more capable beats. For a rhyme style like his, the beats need to be excessively dope. Otherwise, all of the linguistic skill he possess will be lost due to the lack of production behind him.