ompilation albums can often be a pain in the ass. There has yet to be one with every song a good one. Soundtracks may be awesome, but there's always at least one bad song to skip over. Da Beatminerz : Brace 4 Impak suffers even more from disparate tracks than should be allowed by law.


Da Beatminerz are a group of DJs and producers that mostly worked for the Boot Camp Clik (and Black Moon in particular). The BCC has a varied group of MCs, some which appear on Brace 4 Impak. The best thing about the album is Da Beatminerz choose to recruit a varied group of rappers to deliver. The worst thing about the album is also that Da Beatminerz chose to recruit a varied group of rappers.


Even though almost all of the tracks have beats that are easy to listen to and distinguish as Beatminerz tracks, they still are varied enough to keep the album flowing. The MCs on the album are often NOT as good as the tracks, which limits the album.


For the most part, MCs that are expected to deliver do. Buckshot (of Black Moon), Ras Kass, Talib Kweli, Royce da 5'9", and Freddie Foxxx all bring verses around the best of their talents. However, on their respective tracks, all have other MCs that almost kill the track. Freddie Foxxx's duet with Heather B is ruined by her inability to sing anything interesting, and makes Foxxx look a little less tough because of it. Not surprisingly, Lord Tariq buries Royce da 5'9" on the title track, which has a nice beat that's ruined by Lord Tariq's insane ranting. Ras Kass is made to look like a microphone god (something that he's not quite yet) by Jayo Felony's idiotic lines that are just as expected from him. If the MCs had been better put together (like, put Jayo Felony with 5th Accelerator on a crappy beat, and at least there's no reason to listen to ANY of the song), at least some songs wouldn't be half good and half poorly. Still, all of the beats are really incredible, which helps the album carry itself.


Another problem with the album is that it's missing some tracks. The first single, "We Run New York" featuring M.O.P. would have easily been the best song on the CD. M.O.P. "mashed" (ha-ha) perfectly with the beat, but because of a dispute between Sony/Loud (M.O.P.'s record label) and Priority's Rawkus (Da Beatminerz's label), Loud would not allow M.O.P. to be on the record. The same thing happened with another strong Loud MC, Xzibit. The CD would certainly have been helped by those two songs, but has some trouble without it.


Brace 4 Impak has, hands down, the best beats of any album released in 2001. However, the inconsistency of the generally crappy MCs (Naughty by Nature, Apani B. Fly, and Caron Wheeler really need some help before they ever touch a mic again, specifically), keeps the CD from being the 10 it could be and instead limits it to only a 6.5.