Lloyd Banks - Rotten Apple

"Lloyd... Lloyd! Come here and help Tarquin with his waistcoat. He's having a frightful time. It's all tangled up with his pocket watch."

You see, this is why rappers always give themselves ludicrous names (literally, in the case of Ludacris). You can't expect to get much 'speck if you're called Lloyd. He sounds like - well - he sounds like the kind of guy who'd help Tarquin with a waistcoat/pocket watch emergency.

I'm noticing a bit of a theme with the Hip and the Hop. Song titles are almost always one word long. How they haven't run out of words, I don't know. Particularly when they're so keen to retread the same ground.

It could be that they exhausted all the more predictable words during the making of this record, because while we get 'Survival', 'Help', 'Addicted' and 'Life'. We also get 'Cake', which is a bit of an unexpected turn in the land of pimping pistols and putting hoes in holes. Or whatever - I get mixed up.

'Cake' must surely be about one of the following: Cake the cake, the cakey cake we all love to eat; cake the drug that's totally fictitious and only appeared in Brass Eye; or Cake the band who recorded 'Going The Distance' and the finest cover of 'I Will Survive' you're ever likely to hear. Whichever it is, it's better than 'reppin' in yo' hood'.

"Lloyd... Lloyd! Come quickly. Tarquin's got battenburg all over his new blazer. Do be a love and help him out. Be careful with his pocket watch."