With No End In Sight – A Long Hot Summer by Masta Ace

While far too many rap acts nowadays gauge their “artistic creativity” by how well they can reinvent some previous artists’ concepts and sounds, Brooklyn emcee Masta Ace has always been recognized as one of the genre’s most inventive minds. Since shining on Marley Marl’s classic 1988 posse cut “The Symphony,” Masta Ace has continually placed his creative nature on display through his original song and album concepts, as well as the development of his signature ‘Brooklyn bass’ sound. Although disenfranchisement with a dishonest music industry has compelled the veteran to hang up his mic prematurely, he still has one more offering for his loyal listeners: the much-anticipated follow-up to his critically acclaimed 2001 album Disposable Arts, entitled A Long Hot Summer.

Set up as a prequel to Disposeable Arts, the opening of A Long Hot Summer (re)introduces us to Masta Ace’s alter ego Ace, a struggling NY rapper who is friends with credit card scammer Fats Belvedere. The atmosphere for the distinctly different struggles these two face is set with “Big City” and “Good Ol Love.” The former is a no-nonsense look at the ‘alternative methods’ some use to get money nowadays, producer Dug Infinite balancing the tales of side-hustles and broken dreams with a harsh, bass-driven stomp. In contrast, the soulful “Good Ol Love” addresses Ace’s desire for appreciation from rap fans and the music industry for his many contributions to the game.

In spite of the stories of inner city struggle and hardship that permeate A Long Hot Summer, Ace the artist never loses his ability to find beauty in the hideous and transfer it to paper. “Beautiful” offsets the harsh ‘hood imagery, the rapper adeptly playing off the simple piano melody and warm synth chords to describe some of the few more positive and picturesque scenes captured by his mind’s eye. “H.O.O.D.” is similarly pictographic, Masta Ace blessing the hopeful classic soul vocals and grooves with more rose-colored musings.

The story progresses with Ace taking a trip to the corner store for some much needed sundries, an apt transition into “Soda & Soap” starring Jean Grae. Here, MA uses the “take an everyday item and spin it into a verse” technique and fashions a clever freestyle using various brand names of soft drinks and detergent. It’s certainly not a bad song, but considering the fact that Ace and Greezy’s collaboration on Disposable Arts yielded the compelling “Hold U” in which Ace rapped about his passion for the mic with Jean rapping back as the mic, this one is a little disappointing. Then the veteran rapper takes a page from an old Denzel flick for “BKLYN Masala” to describe the inevitable clash of cultures that result from falling in love with a girl from Pakistan.

Eventually Ace the protagonist permits Fats to tour with him (Fats uses the tour manager gig as a guise to help keep his out-of-state hustles looking legit), and along the way Fats falls in love with all the groupie love. Enter legendary Lyricist Lounge duo Punch & Words with the light-heated thump “Travelocity,” a world-traversing sexcapade that’s essentially a more lyrical version of Ludacris’ “Area Codes.” However, as ‘distracted’ as Fats Belvedere tends to get, his proclivity for violence does tend to be very useful when it comes to getting money issues resolved. Ace writes “The Ways” to share his own thoughts on using strong-arm tactics as extra leverage in label negotiations, producer DJ Serious’ ominous low-ends and haunting string accompaniment giving off a extraordinarily appropriate for smacking up a record industry exec.

While A Long Hot Summer is a strong album in its own right, its impossible to ignore the fact that it so closely and so deliberately mimics Disposeable Arts. The story concept (with significantly less plot developments this time around), the hood anthems, the Punch & Words and Jean Grae tag teams… the album feels like Masta Ace just sat down and said, “this worked well on DA, how can I do it again on the new joint?”

Still, this minor quibble doesn’t change the fact that recreating past successes of does work well for Master Ace on this follow-up. Once again the veteran proves that forethought and vision are just as important to constructing a superb rap album as beats and rhymes. For those who missed it when it dropped in August, cop it now and warm up your winter with A Long Hot Summer.

Track Listing:
01. The Count (intro)
02. Big City
03. Good Ol Love
04. Fats Belvedere (interlude)
05. Da Grind feat. Apocalypse
06. H.O.O.D.
07. The Stoop (interlude)
08. Beautiful
09. F.A.Y. feat. Strick
10. Fats Crib
11. Soda & Soap feat. Jean Grae
12. Do It Man feat. Big Noyd
13. BKLYN Masala feat. Leschea
14. The Proposition (interlude)
15. Travelocity feat. Punch & Words
16. The Ways
17. Wutuwanko feat. Edo G.
18. The After Party (interlude)
19. Oh My God feat. The Beatnuts & Rahzel
20. Cellmate (interlude)
21. Revelations