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These issues aside, Jadakiss makes good on his promise to become a rounded lyricist and receives some valuable help in the form of tight production work from a handful of pros - surprisingly enough, Swizz Beatz's work on "Real Hip Hop" tops anything that producer did for Cassidy's debut, and the Red Spyda-manned title track (bizarrely tucked near the end) is Jadakiss' most vicious track yet. This, along with a particularly ill-suited "soft and smooth track for the ladies" featuring a carted-in Mariah Carey as well as a too-familiar-sounding Scott Storch production, is thankfully the only outright blights on an otherwise satisfactory showing. The most startling thing about Kiss of Death is that Jadakiss dumped a bunch of Neptunes productions and kept only "Hot Sauce to Go," one of the record's poorest tracks.
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