Review: Saigon - Greatest Story Never Told

Don't call it a comeback.  Saigon and Hip Hop have been living in parallel the last couple of years.  Save a few chart-toppers, Hip Hop has been in a state of suspended animation for a minute.  So it seems has Saigon, whose label woes have kept him quiet for longer than he would have anticipated.

Coming off the buzz of his role in Entourage (where he played a version of himself), Saigon was looking like gold, but the industry had other ideas.  With all that behind him, Saigon has teamed up with Legendary producer Just Blaze (Jay-Z) to craft a beast of an album, one that is lush and grimy in equal amounts.

Blaze laces each track with his trademark orchestral flourishes, ornamenting Saigon's street-level everyman rhymes with a decadent backdrop.  They don't try to re-invent the wheel here, instead they just pimp it out with new Sprewell rims and a nice cut and polish.

The album bursts out the gates with bravado on 'The Invitation', and follows up with the Jay-Z/Swizz Beatz collab Come On Baby, a club ready banger thats still sounds good, even if it is a year old.  Besides the amazing production, the key to making these songs work is Saigon's ability to find the sincerity in each topic he broaches, and he broaches a few.

'Preacher' admonishes our church leaders who live high off the congregation, and the back-to-back 'Enemies' and 'Friends' takes two different perspectives on a similar theme, being led astray by your so-called mates.  Braggadocio is the rapper staple, and Saigon has it in spades, but where his contemporaries roll out tried and trite drug manifesto's, Saigon tells it through the eyes of those who live it, whether that be young drug runner deciding between school or the corner, or as the angry son, berating absent fathers and imploring mothers to raise their kids right.

18 strong tracks is tough to pull off, but Saigon does it with ease.  One of the best of the year, one of the best of the new decade.