This came out in 1999 – or at least that’s when I got it. Here’s what I said about it back then (with some minor editing):
Black Gangster is easily the coolest concept for an album I have come across lately: A soundtrack based on a book by ’70s black crime novelist Donald Goines.
Jay-Z, Ja Rule, DMX and a posse of lesser gangster-rap lights take the late author’s rags-to-riches morality play about a — you guessed it — black gangster and spin it into an album’s worth of high-grade odes to money, macking and the thug life. Admittedly, the fact that virtually every rap song ever written is about money, macking and the thug life kind of lessens the impact. Even so, Black Gangster is above-average — and anything that spreads the word about the criminally overlooked Goines is OK in my book. Now, how about a soundtrack to Daddy Cool?
