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WHO IS MIKE JONES?
(Warner Bros.)
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Houston’s rap scene is on fire right now, and Mike Jones can lay claim to a lot of the heat. Earlier this year, along with Swishahouse compatriots Slim Thug & Paul Wall, Jones brought his city’s syrupy trademark "screwed & chopped" sound into the national spotlight with the trunk-rattlin’ smash "Still Tippin.’ " Composed of mournful violins and MCs with 45-playing-at-33 flows, "Tippin’ " was the foot in the door that Texas needed, making mainstream ears and (more important) hands more willing to welcome the flurry of mix tapes coming from every young thundercat in town. But the last thing Houston needs right now is Who Is Mike Jones?, a disposable Whitman’s Sampler full of recycled flows and beats that Jones has spread across countless mix tapes and underground singles over the last four years. Although you can’t front on the dude’s charisma, most of the rhymes here are awful — a relentless barrage of references to classic Screwston vices like candy paint, purple drank, and scandalous ho’s. (Is it meta or just ridiculous to leave lines like "My album, Who Is Mike Jones?, comin’ soon!" on your CD?) Anyone remotely familiar with Houston rap will have heard "Got It Sewed Up" and "Cuttin’ " before; worse, these versions are remixed with lesser beats. And though the occasional track — like the deliciously synthy "Flossin’ " — pulls together, the success can be attributed as much to Wreckshop crooner Big Moe’s chorus as to Jones’s verses.
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