My Homies

by Stephen Thomas ErlewineScarface was never one of the more consistent hardcore rappers, falling prey to a tendency for cartoonish violence and comic-book gangsta fantasies. As long as his music hit hard, such traits were forgivable, but he began to slip in the mid-'90s, relying on familiar styles, samples, beats, and grooves. All of these factors are reasons why his double-disc opus My Homies was not the greatest of ideas. Scarface simply doesn't have enough ideas to sustain an album of this gargantuan size, especially since it follows Untouchable by just a year. He recycles beats and basslines, and he repeats themes over and over again. The moments that do work, such as the dynamic Master P collaboration "Homies & Thuggs," only put the weakness of the remaining album in sharper relief. My Homies would have been tiring if it had been a single 70-minute disc, but at this bloated double length, it's plain exhausting.