Nationwide Rip Ridaz II - Betrayed (Can't Trust Nobody)

the take

During the 1995 cycle of the Bloods' and Crips' respective debut albums, I actually like "Damu Ridas" more than "Nationwide Rip Ridaz". The consistency of the former is more evident than on the latter, even though the best song between the two albums was on the latter ("What We Celieve In"). That said, I still was a bit hesitant to listen to the follow-up that was released four years later, "Betrayed (Can't Trust Nobody)", due to the popularity of gangsta rap declining significantly in the years that followed. One of the same issues on here that I also experienced with the Bloods' "How Deep Is Your Hood" is the surface level gangbanging lyricism that offers nothing new or innovative to the table. That's not all too surprising when you really think about the finite number of ways to say both "I'm down with my gang" and "I want to terminate my opps of another color". What makes these bars a bit more tolerable on their own is the flows by the various members make up where the lyricism lacks. The flows help make the song more tolerable and more likely to make you want to bob your head to the music. Plus what makes this album good is the production on here. Though it sounds kind of dated, it's not as atrocious as what's on the other album. You can kind of hear the innovation of incorporating some new refreshing sounds to the typical West Coast drum patterns that can make a member begin hitting their respective gang's walk. I think the fact they don't try to hard to recreate older songs and using other songs to sample from makes this a slightly refreshing listen. "Betrayed (Can't Trust Nobody)" isn't really anything special, and it's somewhat of a far cry from the first "Nationwide Rip Ridaz". However, the number of highlights on here is greater than the number of highlights on their opps' album (shout out to "Betrayed", "Lost and Sherm'ed Out", and "Crip Loc").