Jim Crow: Crow's Nest

Jim Crow's name might hearken back to the oppression and degradation of the pre-Civil Rights-era South, but the Atlanta hip-hop trio's music focuses squarely on old-fashioned hedonism. Effortlessly finding the middle ground between Cool Breeze and OutKast's defiantly Southern arrogance and Too $hort's dirty-minded funk, Jim Crow's debut album Crow's Nest is devoted mainly to the facile pleasures that accompany a laid-back world filled with groupies, weed smoke, and constantly flowing liquor. Like $hort and OutKast, Jim Crow matches inimitable flows with largely sample-free, live instrument-powered tracks, with impressive results. On the album's first single, "That Drama (Baby's Mama)," the group joins forces with $hort and Jazze Pha for a spirited riff on B-Rock And The Bizz's classic guilty pleasure "Babyzdaddy," while "Flaw Boyz" finds Jim Crow teaming up with the suddenly ubiquitous Juvenile for some straight-up boasting that wouldn't feel out of place on a Hot Boys album. The group's lyrical content seldom strays from the joys of macking and smoking, but the production never falters, delivering a full sound that largely transcends Jim Crow's straightforward subject matter. Rich in atmosphere, if not originality, Crow's Nest is a thematically flawed but tremendously promising debut that fits nicely into the current Southern hip-hop renaissance.