What's so admirable about Scarface is that when he raps, he never tries to impress anybody. With his voice, social commentary, and wicked on-and-off again flow, you can feel him AND believe him, unlike most icy, studio gangsta rappers today. That's why fans like myself have supported him, even on his okay days. And I'm glad I did, because The Fix is his best solo album since The Diary.

While his last albums (The Untouchable, "My Homies" compilation, Last of a Dying Breed) each had a few hot joints on them, this album never runs out of gems. Scarface still brings those hood tales to us like on "In Cold Blood" and "Keep Me Down". On the latter, the music is just plain funky, and speaking of production, the diverse production from everyone from Kanye West and T-Mixx works in his favor more on this album than on Last of a Dying Breed.

The song that you've all heard already, "On My Block" (which uses a slightly chopped-up, sped-up sample of Donny Hathaway and Roberta Flack's "Be Real Black for Me"), sounds just as good now as it did the other million times I played it. Hearing that song (and seeing the video) reminds me of 1994 rap, where there's just a gangsta beat and a gangsta rhyme, minus any pimping, jiggy dancing and popping Mo'. And while most "back-in-the-day" raps are played-out now, Scarface wins by telling original tales of how it used to be.

Though I was skeptical to hear Scarface with The Neptunes and Faith Evans on "Someday", that track actually works, as does "What Can I Do" with Kelly Price. On the latter, 'Face goes back to his low-key, "I Seen a Man Die"-esque voice, which is classic in its own way. The other guest star contributions are also stellar: check out "I Ain't the One" with W.C. (man, that even looks good on paper). And while I loved the Nas/'Face 1999 collabo "Favor for a Favor", "In Between Us" blows that track out the water. Both rappers give introspective tales, and while most people don't like the long chorus in between the two verses, I actually think that it's good to hear a song that defies the usual "16 bars-chorus-16-bars-chorus-16 bars-chorus-fade out" formula.

Only ONE flaw to find on here: though I like "Guess Who's Back" (with Jay-Z and Beanie Sigel) as a single, it sounds a little out of place on this album full of Down South flava (Jay-Z even starts off the track by saying, "Welcome to New York City"). And every time they say, "Guess who's bizzack," I always wanna say, "They were gone? Where did they go?", "And why does this song sound like it was left off Jay-Z's Blueprint album?". But enough hating, this album is great, and it's even 47 minutes long. FINALLY, someone gets it: you don't need to have a long album to get your point across. Scarface is real rap, not HIP-HOP, I said RAP. Get this album now to get your rap fix. Anyone who's looking for Reynolds (read: plastic rap) can seek elsewhere.

Simply stated, Brad Jordan has been putting in work for years, ladies and gentlemen. As a Geto Boy and as a solo artist, Scarface has been impressing many hip hop fans for awhile. Tracks like the original "Scarface", "Mind Of A Lunatic", "Mr. Scarface", "Damn It Feels Good To Be A Gangsta", "Money And The Power", "A Minute To Pray And A Second To Die", "Good Girl Gone Bad", "Now I Feel Ya" and his best song of all time in my opinion, "I Seen A Man Die" are still classics to this day. Scarface put the South on the map and it's good to see that he is still holdin' it down. "The Fix" is an all around CD. There were some bad reviews about 2000's "A Last Of A Dying Breed" for some reason. It may have been that Scarface was trying to be more diverse than he had on past CDs and he had a lot of guest appearances from his Def Jam mates. 1998's "My Homies" couldn't be counted as a Scarface CD because it was mainly brought out to include his friends in the rap business and on some songs Scarface wasn't even featured on them. So to some of his diehard fans, 1997's "The Untouchable" was his last real CD. "The Fix" may be Scarface at his best, but that depends on what aspect of Face that you like. If you like the hardcore and dillusional Scarface from the early Geto Boys CDs and his first solo CD, you may not enjoy his new CD as much as I do. This release demonstrates Scarface's growth in the game and he clearly demonstrates that he has matured in many ways. First of all you get the Scarface that we all have come to know and love with the hardcore stories of the hood in the 1st two tracks, "Safe" and the Kanye West produced "In Cold Blood". Nobody can tell a story like Scarface and in most cases they are real stories that are brought into the light by a song. "Keep Me Down" follows this format as well. After the 1st two tracks, Kanye West shows up again on the boards and Jay Z & Beanie Sigel join Scarface on the smash "Guess Who's Back". The collaboration on "The Last Of A Dying Breed" that featured Face and Jay Z, "Get Out" is clearly blown out of the water by "Guess Who's Back". This would be the best song on "The Fix" but the Nashiem Myrick produced 1st single, "My Block" holds that honor. Although, you may see the video on BET and MTV2 constantly, "My Block" is the best single that Face has released in awhile. Over the nice blues beat Scarface slows things down and allows people to know how it was growing up in the 5th Ward. Kelly Price is featured twice on "The Fix" which is unusual because when r&b artists show up on someone's CD they aren't featured on more than one song. "What Can I Do?" is reminiscent of "I Seen A Man Cry" as Face speaks the same lingo as he did on the 1994 classic and "Heaven" starts out as the same type of song but towards the end Kanye West switches the beat up and Scarface speeds his flow up a notch. On the Nas featured, "In Between Us", Nas Escobar and Face have tight lyrics but in the middle of their verses they are interrupted by a dragged out chorus by Tanya Herron. This takes away from the quality of the overall song but it is still listenable. The Neptunes produced "Someday" seems out of place but after a few listens the song will start to grow on you and Faith Evans does a good job with the chorus. Overall, Scarface has pleased me with his new release. He has demonstrated tremendous growth and maturity and his fans should enjoy this quick fix. Hopefully, this will not mark the end of a great career.

James' Top 5

1. My Block
2. Guess Who's Back w/Jay Z & Beanie Sigel
3. In Cold Blood
4. Safe
5. Keep Me Down

Okay i bought it about ten minutes ago. The packaging was ambitious, so ambitious that the title Fix can't even be found on the cover. And the cd comes with a mock foil-wrap like the ones Face sold in the early eighties before he started rapping. Don't ask me how that got past the censors.

Enough about the cd cover. How does this Face stack up? Good, somewhere between the poorly recieved My Homies and Face masterpieces like the Diary and The World is Yours.

The Beats are good, for the most part. These days my expectations for any release are pretty low. I've been burned too many times. If it has three listenable cuts i'm happy. Now that Brad has been taken under the Def Jam wing Russel taints the Texas sound with a gloss that works in some cases (IN Between us) and fails in others (someday). Female back-ups don't really lend themselves to Scarface but he triumphs in spite of Def Jam tampering. And this glossy R&B sound didn't really infect Face until the late nineties (on Untouchable).

There are seven or eight good cuts and newcomers who aren't quite sure why Scarface took home the Best Lyricist at the Source Awards would do well to listen to The Fix. Scarface's greatest virtue is his ability to ignore the jiggy/ big willy BS that so many rappers rely on, talking about what kind of cars they have, how much money they have, how many women they have. And he probably owes his longevity to this. He's been in the game for fifteen plus years and in rap years that translates to about 150. He is one of a few top-notch acts (among them Wu-tang and Outkast) that is consistently original. The Fix will do nothing to lower him or elevate him even higher above the plateau very few reach. In short it's good and will probably be one of ten hip-hop releases worth a listen as 2002 comes to a close.

This is a great album, i actually didn't expect it to be this good, but great beats from the likes of Kanye West and Scarface's awesome flow make this underrated cd a classic. Scarface himself is also underrated, he is one of the best lyricist ever and has such a good flow, this dude can really rap. Some of my favorite tracks are On My Block, Guess Who's Back, and What Can I Do, and even the intro,outro sound pretty good. On My Block is what made me buy it, but before that all i knew about scarface was that he's a pretty good rapper, but i didn't know he was so deep lyrically. Anyways, on my block has got a very good piano-souled beat, not to mention the lyrics on the track. And this whole cd doesn't have one weak song, and that's one of the things i love about it. Every song has got a great beat, great rappers like nas, jay z help out too, and Scarface spits fire in all of his verses. Scarface should be considered one of the greatest rappers of all time, and in my book he is definitely up there.

I will admit that I wasn't much of a Scarface fan and the only album I really heard from Scarface was "The Untouchable" which featured "Smile" featuring 2Pac. After watching the video, "On My Block" on TV and than listening to it on the radio, I decided to give this album a try. After gettin the album, I couldn't stop listening to it. I can listen to just about every song with no problem.

The album starts off with a brief intro and then goes into the song "Safe". Scarface spits on how you gotta keep your personal information safe from anyone else so others don't start plotting against you. I'm feeling the beat as well. "In Cold Blood" has a nice, old-time feel to it in which Scarface tells a story of his street life and some obstacles. The radio hit, "Guess Who's Back" featuring Jay-Z & Beanie Sigel works well. The beat Kanye West laid down is a favorite and all three lyricist ripped it. "On My Block" is my favorite song on the album because Scarface retells about his memories on the block over the sampled piano loop. "Keep Me Down" is a guitar-powered beat in which Scarface addresses the hater trying to keep him down from what he does best. The track is followed by the somber "What Can I Do" featuring Kelly Price and this is where Scarface gets real. The beat really helps to bring out a bigger message than what Face is spittin but the lyrics were heartfelt. "In Between Us" feat Nas is an amazing personal track. Both Nas and Scarface told their own personal stories of how friendships were disturbed by a certain something. I like the chorus even though it was kinda long. The Neptune-laced "Someday" is next and it works perfectly. The mix of Face Mob and Faith Evans worked to perfection with Scarface spitting memorable rhymes and Faith's powerful chorus. "Sellout" is about rap/hip hop artists who have the sell out to move more albums and become more famous rather than keeping their same style which made them good. The heartfelt "Heaven" is next in where there's two parts. The first part is where Scarface talks about finding heaven in a girl. Then after the 2nd verse, the beat is different and Scarface talks about the effects on 9/11. The final song "I Ain't The One" featuring W.C. is raw and tight. I loved W.C. spitting to the beat but Scarface kept his ground as well. Then tha ablum closes out with an outro.

Final Review: Even though I haven't heard much of Scarface material other than the Fix and Untouchable, I really expect good things from the Def Jam South owner. Make sure you get this classic album because you won't be disappointed.