I had halfway negative experiences with Mack 10, so I've always given his "era" the side-eye, even retro-actively.

Back in 2000(?!?!?!), I got flown out to Chicago to interview him for a cover story I was writing. It was in advance of "The Paper Route", not that long after he married T-Boz, and while he was rolling with Ice Cube as part of the Smoking Grooves tour. The idea was that he was going to do a photo shoot, then I'd interview him for a bit, then he'd go and do the show.

Well, dude was literally 4 hours late to the shoot. Which was awkward. But I at least got to kick it with the photographers, label rep, and wardrobe girls, who were all cool. Then the photo shoot took like another hour. By the time it was over, he had to head out to the venue. So I got to talk to him for all of 15 minutes en route to the show. And that was 10 minutes too long, because he was one of the least interesting rappers I've ever interviewed. And "The Paper Route" kinda sucked.

But still, listening to the albums from cats in his camp, they had something. And I'll give his first few albums their day in court.

In the meantime, this "Shadiest One" joint is dope.