“Don’t hate” is the sophomore effort of Kaduna born, Abuja based rapper OD (Overdose), who without doubt is one of the illess punch line emcees this side of the Niger. With the folding up of Paybacktyme records where his debut album was released, dude pitched tent with KD World Records to release his first album in five years.

Album Details

Original Release Date: 2006

Number of Discs: 1

Format: Explicit Lyrics

Label: KD World Records

Production: Mostly by Jamix, with Mista Seth, G-Lynx, Callen (Jeremiah Gyang) and OD himself contributing.

Guest appearances: Sasha, Terry Tha Rapman, KB of The Trybesmen, El Dot, Modenine, Black Solo, AT and Sound Sultan.

Track list:
1. Intro
2. Don’t hate featuring AT
3. Take it all
4. Groupie luv featuring Terry Tha Rapman
5. No be today featuring Sound Sultan and Pherowshuz
6. Get down
7. Here wiv me featuring Sasha
8. Run far away featuring Black Solo
9. FCDA radio (skit)
10. Tha hottest in tha building’ featuring KB
11. Don’t hate (remix) featuring Modenine and El Dot
12. Skit
13. Every day featuring Terry Tha Rapman
14. Tha game featuring G-Lynx
15. Go Slow featuring Black Solo

Favourite tracks: On every listen “don’t hate” (the lead single and album title) invokes some really gritty hardcore hip hop feeling in me. On the dark sounding track OD tells his critics that despite what they may think he’s comfortable with his foreign like rap style. It’s got a nice rhyme-along chorus featuring a one-two with AT, his pal from way back. “Every day” gets continuous repeats on my deck. It’s a satirical song depicting the party, materialistic and womanizing like theme of many contemporary songs by Nigerian hip hop artists. While on “tha game” OD lets out some steam on the current state of hip hop in Nigeria, ably complemented by G-Lynx (the producer) on the chorus who gives the song a nice soft rock feeling.

Criticism: The songs that did it for me are “don’t hate”, “every day” and “tha game”. While most of the others follow the tight-punch-lines-on-an-uninspiring-beat-with-a-lackluster-chorus pattern. The FCDA skit was completely unnecessary. After several listens I’m of the opinion that OD didn’t do enough to shut up his critics because despite having full artistic control of the album most of the songs still turned out bland. On a different artistic level the CD’s jacket design wasn’t too bad.

Rating: My rating for the LP on a scale of 5 is 2.5.

Sample: Listen to “don’t hate” featuring AT

Links: More info on the album available at http://www.africanhiphop.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=78885#78885

Contact info: +2348050370746, dukeargon@yahoo.com and http://www.myspace.com/dukeargon

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