It feels as though Puerto Rican rappe N.O.R.E. hasn't been around since the 1990s. Actually, he has never been away, but whether with Capone nor as a solo act, he simply hasn't been very good.
That's about to change. Newly signed to Busta Rhymes label, "Finito" -the first track off the new album is just brilliant. A verbal hook, rhyming "peephole" with "people" "heat-o" and the finishing end "finito", makes it as immensely listenable as pop music is ever gonna get and the best track since Lil Wayne, who is on this track, guested on Game's "Red nation"
Pharrel produced and he is another cat who has seemed a step behind the past couple of years so it is absolutely to his credit not only how ticky tacky the drums are, or how the chick hangs in touch, and how it holds together as a perfect slice of modern pop, but that his chorus hijacks the song.
An "animal anthem" indeed.