Young Buck’s Straight Outta Cashville is an experiment of sorts, as it is the Shady/Aftermath camp’s first soirée below the Mason-Dixon line. The one-time Cash Money Millionaire was the fourth official member of the G-Unit camp that seems to be growing by the month. Coming on the heels of 50 Cent and Lloyd Banks, the pressure is on Buck to keep the ball rolling both in terms of sales and fan approval. Unlike the previous G-Unit albums, Buck does not use any in-house production. To some surprise, he keeps it all down south.

The funny thing is, it really doesn’t bear the signature of the south too heavily. It actually sounds like what you might get if the Shady camp tried to make an album with down south appeal, which I guess it is in a sense – but they didn’t actually produce it; real southern cats did. Something tells me the executive producer was in full effect here. Rambling done, the entire album can really be encapsulated in the opening track “I’m A Soldier” – a serviceable but unspectacular beat, a catchy and violent hook, and Buck spitting ghetto imagery, plus some threats. While this is essentially what 50 and Lloyd did, Buck doesn’t make it work the way they did. Where 50 and Banks have good flows and likable charisma, Buck is just kind of there and rarely adds anything interesting to songs. In some cases, he actually takes away from a song such as the mind-blowing “Thou Shall.” Just an incredible beat butchered horribly by Buck; for real, this is just a travesty. It is still the best track on the album due to the beat, but damn.

There is some other good stuff here, “Black Gloves” works nicely, as does the controversial “Stomp” with the show-stealing Ludacris. “Walk With Me” is cool, and Stat Quo certainly shows some promise. “Let Me In” is pretty good for what it is, but it is just too cookie cutter for me to like it. But for the good there is also the trash like “Taking Hits” and the laughable “Shorty Wanna Ride.” “Bang Bang” could have been dope, but the sample really wasn’t flipped very well at all. What you have in the end is a very average album that is fairly boring from front to back. Even with the obvious flaws of the albums from 50 and Banks, both were put together in a way to make them seem better than they really were. Straight Outta Cashville does not possess that same quality.