Certified Crunk

by Jason BirchmeierSix or so years after Lil' Jon & the East Side Boyz debuted on the Atlanta indie label Mirror Image with Get Crunk, Who U Wit: Da Album in 1997, the label gathered together leftovers from that album and released Certified Crunk, which is essentially an alternate version of Get Crunk. Certified Crunk features most of the same songs -- "Get Crunk," "Who U Wit," "Bounce Dat Ass," "Cut Up," "Ya'll Don't Feel Me," "Shawty Freak a Lil' Sumthin'" -- in slightly remixed form (and often with slightly altered track-title spellings) along with a few other previously released odds and ends like "Stop Trippin'," a notable 1998 DJ Smurf production featuring Ludacris. Frankly, there isn't anything exceptional here that is worth going out of your way to hear, even if you're a fairly fervent Lil' Jon & the East Side Boyz fan -- Get Crunk, Who U Wit: Da Album is better, and pretty much every other Lil' Jon album is far better. Essentially, Certified Crunk is a cash-in release by Mirror Image, who hoped to capitalize on Jon's remarkable success circa 2003 (with "Get Low" in particular) by passing off a collection of leftovers as a timely new album to unsuspecting fans.