Steddy P.

There’s a kind-of-funny, kind-of-sad scene in the movie Baby
Boy, John Singleton’s follow-up to Boyz n the Hood. Tyrese
Gibson and Omar Gooding, playing two close friends, chase down a group
of teenage boys who have robbed Tyrese’s character. Gooding and Tyrese
line up each of the young boys on a front lawn. While the other boys
tremble, one stares directly back at them. “Little homie’s got heart,”
Gooding says, pointing to the bravest of the group, before catapulting
him backward with a vicious uppercut. Having heart is valuable,
admirable even, but not always redemptive in a life of unpredictable
hard knocks. It’s a lesson that applies to Virgo, the latest
effort from KC rapper Steddy P. No doubt Steddy’s got heart. On
“That’s Life,” the third of the album’s eight tracks, he refers to his
brother’s bout with cancer and touches on the dangers of substance
abuse and selling out. Life has been hard lately, he tells
listeners over a strumming acoustic guitar. The album’s production
— filled with booming jazz horns, record scratching, snare drums
and hi-hats — is refreshingly old-school and a perfect complement
to Steddy’s authentic ethos. The fact remains, however, that Steddy
still hasn’t shown the sophisticated rhyme schemes, wordplay and
original cadences that could usher him to elite status. Heart,
unfortunately, is not always enough.