The Fix (Explicit)

by John BushBrad Jordan, head of A&R for Def Jam South, was a big success after just a few months on the job; his signing of Ludacris in 2000 paid off in triple-platinum after less than a year. It's not every A&R man who's rewarded for great work with an album of his own, but then again, not every A&R man is also one of the most influential voices in the history of hip-hop. After defining the down South gangsta during the late '80s with Geto Boys, Scarface began a solo career that earned him a couple of gold albums and saw some of the biggest names in rap (2Pac, Ice Cube, Kurupt, Too Short) angling to work with him -- this back when posse tracks were rarities. Scarface fans will recognize quite a few of the usual themes throughout The Fix, like the good-times-and-bad territory anthem "My Block" (complete with an old-school production, '70s style) and "In Cold Blood," a first-person journal entry from a gang-banger. The highlights, though, find Scarface morphing back into Jordan the bottom-line businessman, banking on the familiar names: "Guess Who's Back" is more a Jay-Z track with a little room for Scarface than the other way around, and the same goes for the Nas feature, "In Between Us." And Pharrell from Neptunes takes over "Someday," with Faith Evans adding a little sugar to the chorus to make up for the patented Scarface growl on the verses. Though The Fix has him reaching for the charts as well as focusing on the personal, the inimitable Scarface balances the competing concerns well.