P-Money: P-Money is Power Review

Being one of the few MCs that has consistently gone to radio this year, and in the aftermath of the well-received promo A Little Back Then With Now, P-Money should be regarded as one of the best MCs of 2008. As a result, P-Money Is Power had high expectations. Unfair or not, it didn't match up to them.

The mixtape was a fair attempt with some good concepts, and the refixing of various MCs' bars was successful initially in The Grime Scene Part 1, and followed up in the wide air-play of Sounds and Gimmicks and P Is a Rascal. However, on the mixtape itself, the idea of taking different lyrics and making them into a new form was one in which the novelty quickly wore off. The attempt to reference as many people as possible tends to lead to a lack of focus on the track, resulting in little being said. There was hype on occasions, but maybe a Sounds and Gimmicks-like track could have been much more effective as an interlude since the track, running to nearly four minutes, did get boring by the end.

New subject matter is appreciated in a scene where content is narrow, but all the same Watch Your Drinks was an odd track, even if the message was valid enough. The track's beat wasn't great either, which is a sentiment that can be said for a fair few tunes on the CD.

However there were exceptions, with Big Shot's contribution providing hype and impetus that was vital to the success of a track like P Is a Rascal, and the Dot Rotten beats were generally good even if he has made better. All the same, the beat for Talking To Trainers was one of the best there, along with Wonder Boy.

The Motive, Slammer, London Boy, and What Did He Say Remix were also good tracks, and Talking To Trainers is also memorable, even if the metaphors were used too much, an offence that Sounds and Gimmicks is also guilty of. However, the style of references worked well on the intro, which related to the tracks that followed in a clever way. The CD 'intro' is often a wasted attempt at introducing the listener to the CD and the world it tries to portray, but this happily wasn't the case here.

P-Money is currently one of the first MCs a grime fan would want to hear on a radio set or at a rave, and he's certainly one of the better MCs out there. He's raw and has an impeccable flow yet, on the evidence of this CD and as an artist, he's not quite the finished article.