If we're defining an album as a unified statement, a collection of songs grouped together to form a singular whole, New Joc City is a spectacular failure-- it's just a hit single and an assload of filler. I'm guessing Bad Boy didn't expect the single to take off, and when it happened, they slapped together everything this kid had recorded in order to get something into stores. The album has no hit producers, no guests more famous than ex-WB star Marques Houston, and no visible identity or purpose. All it has is one hit single.
But then, the single in question, "It's Goin' Down" is basically filler itself. Even by the minimal standards of snap music, it barely exists. It's just a clicking drumbeat, a maddeningly repetitive synth line, and a swaggery brag-rap from Joc. The main reason for the single's ubiquity is the dance Joc does in the video: He holds his arms out in front of him and pretends to rev a motorcycle while frantically jerking off to the side. On "106 & Park", Tom Cruise managed a painfully inept version of said dance and lit up a million YouTube screens. At Hot 97's Summer Jam, thousands of kids revved their imaginary motorcycles while the Diplomats' Jim Jones, who had brought Joc onstage, looked on impassively. I haven't seen mobs of kids doing the motorcycle dance on the subway the way they did with the lean wit it, rock wit it, but maybe it's only a matter of time. You can't keep a good dance down.
The rest of the album barely merits comment. The beats are bargain-basement minimal snap stuff with none of the frantic energy of Dem Franchize Boyz or the sidelong melodicism of D4L: itchy synth blips on "Patron", staggeringly awful steel drums on "Flip Flop", soft-focus slow-jam guitars on "1st Time". Joc's persona is an attempt to capitalize on the T.I./Jeezy coke-rap trend; he raps a lot about dealing drugs, though he never shows any of the cavalier ease or the painstakingly detailed storytelling sense that sometimes makes those other rappers great. When he tries sneering nihilism, he's nowhere near convincing: "Babies crying, niggas dying all over the place/ Your mama crying cause blood all over her face." The last third of the album is given over to sex-jams, and that's where things really get laughable: "I'ma keep going and going, the Energizer Bunny," "She love to call me Tyson when I nibble on her ear." If Bad Boy really expected to make any money off this album, they would've at least found Joc a decent ghostwriter.
The album has a couple of OK moments, like the tense and urgent windy beat on "Dope Boy Magic", which would've fit on the incomparably better Boyz N Da Hood album, or the blaring horns on "Hear Me Coming". But if you really need a copy of "It's Goin' Down" so you can better practice your motorcycle-dance in front of the mirror, well, the iTunes music store is a click away.
