(Def Jam)
It's been handbags at dawn of late, with 50 Cent and Ja Rule firing insults back and forth, and Ashanti wailing like a girlfriend in a pub brawl. Blood in My Eye sees Rule bow down to critics of his commercial sound: it's a rough, back-to-basics rap album. Instead of pop divas, there are guest spots from rappers Young Merc and Caddillac Tah. Clap Back is a raspy club banger and the urgent strings of Race Against Time are part of a stunning musical landscape created by Irv Gotti. But if Rule has a responsibility to deliver for the R&B fans he gathered when duetting with Ashanti, he has ignored it: this album is more concerned with answering critics and continuing the backbiting with the Death Row camp.