Suit

by

Nelly

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The Suit disc is by far the more interesting disc of the two. There are only 11 songs here, but thankfully they're relatively diverse compared to those of Sweat. All except three of them are collabos, and often the collaborators steal the show, reducing Nelly to guest status on his own album. "Play It Off," a tiptop-shelf Neptunes joint boasting a great Pharrell vocal contribution, kicks off the album marvelously, and the next two tracks - "Pretty Toes" and "My Place" - are top draws also. The former is a fun Jazze Pha song toasting fly girls, and the latter is a "Dilemma" retread - where that song had aped Patti LaBelle's "Love, Need and Want You" for its hook (to much success), this one apes yet another Philly soul classic, Teddy Pendergrass' bedroom ballad "Come Go With Me" (again, to much success). Another highlight is "She Don't Know My Name," a Speakerboxxx-like Big Boi (of OutKast) production where Ron Isley and Snoop Dogg steal the show, leaving Nelly only a 45-second verse for himself. Most of the other songs have their virtues: for instance, "N Dey Say" appropriates Spandau Ballet's timeless 1983 Top Ten hit "True"; "Woodgrain and Leather Wit a Hole" is a laid-back ode to smoking and driving (hydro smoking, that is); "It's My Life" marks the return of (...drum roll, please) Mase; and "Over and Over" includes an overdubbed hook by country star Tim McGraw that works much better than it should. All of this amounts to a brief album with absolutely no filler. Granted, Nelly's rapping here is more restrained and insubstantial than ever, but when you have a cast of collaborators like this, the actual rapping is beside the point - these are fun songs, plain and simple, and wonderfully catchy to boot. This makes for a great album. Had Nelly combined the 49-minute Suit with the half-dozen highlights from Sweat, however, he'd have a really great album.