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With Checks, Thugs, and Rock n' Roll, DMC has done something entirely gutsy. DMC, with an army of producers, have actually mixed rock and rap. You can almost imagine what DMC was thinking while putting together the disc: "Two drastically different genres joining together must offer some sense of a novel experience!" What is entirely gutsy about this union is that the "talent" behind it actually thought - some two decades after the turd "Walk this Way" - that anyone still cares to hear another foray into an always disastrous blending of two genres. Aerosmith's union with Run DMC worked because it was '80s lame. But a whole album of lame?

Checks, Thugs, and Rock n' Roll is a heaping mound of cheese. Jimi Hendrix, The Beatles, and Johnny Cash are all used to the discredit of this album. I'd rather not describe how "Watchtower" perverts Hendrix's guitar playing. Trust me, it's horrible.

The only salvageable elements are those that often cause laughter. Check out these mad rhymes from the track "Come 2gether": "Come together like Will and Jada/Around the world like the equate/Be kind like a first grada/See ya lata Alligata." I'm not sure if this is "old school" rhyming, but it is the whackest shit ever (and not whack in a good way).

Most tracks are socially conscious; lyrics are focused on wasteful modern day rappers, pro-life banter and anti-war sentiments. The most I can say about this disc is that it is good for a laugh. But taken seriously, I'd say it's the equivalent to a bad novelty project made amongst faded memories of when DMC actually mattered.

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