Ghetto Commission – Wise Guys (11-10-1998)

Posted on Dec 16 in Rapaveli Retroby adminPrint

I took a liking to the Ghetto Commission from the very first time I heard them a few months earlier on the I Got The Hook Up soundtrack. I remember coming home from a field trip in the eighth grade and hopping on my bike for a cold ass ride up to Target to pick this album up. Even though I knew there was a chance that it would be kind of weak like the rest of the No Limit releases within the past few weeks I still felt I had to have it.

Wise Guys opens up with a clever reworking of Bon Jovi’s “Dead Or Alive” for the Master P and Mystikal assisted “I’m A Soulja.” Producer O’Dell lays a mob-influenced backdrop as the colonel and the GC combine for one of the album’s most well delivered efforts of “Thug Til I Die.” Carlos Stephens lifts a couple of Master P’s lines from the classic “Break Em Off” joint for the leather tough “Hustla Baller.” The GC takes a break from street life a s they send a well delivered message to young women lost all throughout the hoods of America on the O’Dell helmed “These Eyes Of Mine.”

My favorite track on this album was and still is the C-Murder assisted “Lost Thugs.” On the track C and the GC go hard as ever over a climaxing operatic offering from the combined efforts of O’Dell and KLC. The GC enlists the help of Silkk The Shocker on the home touching hood ode “Trying To Change.”  Me second favorite track on this album used to be “Our Thing” where the GC hooks up with Magic, Mac, and QB to show he N.O. some quick love over a bass heavy backing courtesy of Craig B.

I must admit that I was fairly impressed with Wise Guys when it first came out and I still have a rather strong liking for this album. The Ghetto Commission seemed to have a different mystique about them as compared to some of the other groups that P just seemed to paste together. It’s obvious that these cats were a group long before they became members of the tank. The funny thing is these are some of the select ex-members of No Limit who actually still pop their heads up every once in awhile.