reeway is an interesting figure. His first appearance was his amazing verse on “1-900 Hustler” on Jay-Z’s album The Dynasty, when he intrigued Roc-a-fella fans by offering something different than the typical cookie cutter Roc-a-fella “pretty thug” (Young Chris, Oschino, Sparks, and Memphis Bleek). Freeway—with his instantly discernable beard, and gruff but sing-songy voice—was immediately compelling. A few years later—almost two years after its original release date—Freeway has finally released Philadelphia Freeway (original, huh?) and, well, it’s not bad. Unfortunately, it also isn’t that good...and in this crowded market, that ain’t gonna do it.


Everyone knew that Freeway was going to get hooked up, production wise, but he didn’t do as well here as he should have. Even with 16 full-length songs, there aren’t any with production that rival anything on Jay-Z’s albums. Just Blaze produced a number of the tracks, and they’re very below average by his standards. One of those tracks, “Free”, has some interesting keys to begin, but then about 20 backup singers are thrown in and they don’t shut up- even while Freeway mumbles on about himself aimlessly, revealing as little information as possible. In contrast, JB has a nice beat on “Flipside”, one that sounds exactly like one of Timbaland’s, but Peedi Crack is such an awful rapper that he completely kills any momentum Freeway and the beat had built. Overall, the tracks don’t have great production, Freeway is inconsistent, and the entire album suffers. Case in point: “Life”, a decent song with an interesting electric guitar accentuating its dark bass and drums, but Freeway tries to rap slow and soft and loses his clarity, ruining the track completely. Unfortunately, Freeway’s only song with both great production and good lyrics is “Line ’Em Up”. A video for that song was released in November 2002, but it didn’t make the final cut of the album.


Freeway is very, very green and raw. His choruses aren’t bad, but too often he relies on chanting or just plain shouting to finish them. His voice doesn’t lend itself well to that, because he often cracks and bellows. Even worse, there aren’t any lyrics on the entire album that would make anyone go “wow”. Freeway is great on guest appearances, but it seems that he can’t string together an entire song by himself. Thankfully, 13 of the tracks feature guests, as Freeway sounds better sharing a song anyway. Among those are “You Got Me”—with Mariah Carey providing an excellent chorus for Jay-Z and Freeway—and “On My Own”, an average duet with Nelly ruined by an annoying chorus and a beat that has the same melody as “Roc The Mic”. “Roc” was a great song but one on which Free and Nelly collaborated for the remix—did they think we wouldn’t notice? Overall, there is nothing memorable anywhere on this entire album. Freeway’s voice gets pretty annoying by the end, as well, even further proving that he’s much better suited for guest appearances. It’s sad, because he seemed so promising on “1-900-Hustler”, one of the best debuts of all time.


Freeway’s real name is Leslie, and getting beyond that, he’s young and in his mid-20s. A lot of people’s debut albums are the best work they ever do, simply because they use lyrics they have been working on for upward of 10 years. The hope here is that Freeway isn’t one of those people. He has an interesting voice and has shown potential in the past. Maybe he can live up to his promise and become a great artist. If not, there are always guest appearances...