East Points Greatest Hit

Every hip-hop collective eventually releases a solo album by someone who seems like they’re mostly along for the ride, and the debut of Cool Breeze — who first made his name on guest spots for tracks like Goodie Mob’s “Dirty South” and OutKast’s “Decatur Psalm” — looks, at first glance, to be that kind of record. Even the big single, “Watch for the Hook (Dungeon Family Mix),” hinged on the presence of those two crews going steel-sharpens-steel posse-cut berserk over an Organized Noize beat, which is one of the most circa-’99 sure things you could ask for. But Freddie Calhoun refuses to be an afterthought on that track, much less the whole album, so his hunger carries the momentum of an album that might otherwise be best-loved for its production. Organized Noize were on the cusp of burning out at this point, but they went out of their minds providing the lion’s share for this one: “We Get It Crunk” and its gelatinously twangy bass-loop monomania is rawer than any big successive hit’s 2000s attempts to claim that term’s status, the smooth-spreading “Butta” is like the apotheosis of their church-organ sacred profanity, and the exclamation-point percussiveness of closer “The Calhouns” demands headnods that require Brock Lesnar-caliber neck muscles. As for the headliner, he’s only ordinary in the company of his peers, and still shines as a lyrically zero-bullshit storyteller: whether he’s spinning a narrative (pulpy and lurid on “Black Gangster”; self-reckoning and enlightening on “The Field”) or just providing a you-are-there documentarian vibe check, Cool Breeze knows he needs your attention and gets it the most straightforward way he can.