Home → Fat Joe → Darkside III
Darkside III
Hip-Hop · 2013 · 10 tracks · 26m

Darkside III

Fat Joe

Gritty, soul-sampled boom bap that returns Fat Joe to his Joey Crack roots. A cold, cinematic journey through the Bronx underworld.

November 23, 2013 · Be Music

Find on Amazon

The Darkside III represents a deliberate retreat from the neon lights of the pop charts into the shadows of the Bronx. It is an album that smells of wet pavement and cold exhaust, trading the radio-friendly hooks of Fat Joe's mid-career for the uncompromising, gravel-throated authority of his early years. The production is a masterclass in modern boom bap, utilizing soul samples that have been stripped of their warmth and reassembled into something menacing and urgent.

Tracklist · 10 Tracks · 26m
01
Darkside III
2:31
02
Madison Squares
2:32
03
MGM Grand
2:56
04
Pain
1:58
05
Your Honor (Produced by Premier)
3:23
06
9th Wonder
2:23
07
Cypher Featuring
2:39
08
Grimy In The Early 90's
2:07
09
Bass Featuring
2:40
10
Angel Sings 2
3:28
Moments Worth Listening For
The moment the soul vocal loop on '95' gets chopped into a stuttering rhythm under Joe's opening bars.
The transition on 'Darkside' where the bass drops out to highlight the starkness of the lyrical imagery.
The way the brass fanfares on 'Your Honor' create a sense of courtroom drama before the drums kick in.
Reviews
AllMusic
Read review
Where This Album DepartsEach spoke is a trait. The orange shape shows where this album pulls away from — or holds to — the rest of the artist’s catalogue. Tap for more.

How does Darkside III sound next to the rest of Fat Joe's catalogue?

Drums+1.1σ

The instrumentation foregrounds drums notably more than the catalogue usually does.

Cassette uses generative AI to enrich its catalog. How we use AI →