TEAM SPORT With a Biggie sample and appropriately divvied up tracks, the star-studded team has upstaged itself
Image credit: Maybach Music Group
TEAM SPORT With a Biggie sample and appropriately divvied up tracks, the star-studded team has upstaged itself
EW's GRADE
A-

Details Release Date: Jun 20, 2012; Lead Performance: Maybach Music Group; Genre: Hip-Hop/Rap; Production: Warner Bros.

Rick Ross is a boss who knows how to get results. The Maybach Music maven guided last year's Vol. 1 to a top five chart debut, and his next entry, Self Made Vol. 2, doubles down on the talent. His stable of rising stars is scary good: Stalley's young-Nas intensity, Wale's brainy word marathons, French Montana's gritty hustle and flow. Ross clearly learned a lot from Diddy's 1997 Bad Boy showcase No Way Out (note the Biggie sample on ''Let's Talk''). Namely, that all a great team needs is the right coach — and a court to play on. A-

Best Tracks:
Fountain of Youth
All Birds
Originally posted Jun 20, 2012 Published in issue #1213 Jun 29, 2012 Order article reprints