Mixerr Album Reviews #9

This is Michael Mixerr. Today I will do a review on Lil Mo's Pain & Paper.

For those who don't know, Pain & Paper was released in 2007 on her independent label HoneyChild Entertainment which was distributed by Koch Records (now E1). At the time she was dropped from Cash Money Records and Universal due to Hurricane Katrina. This album was supposed to mark her comeback. Instead it went under the radar sold under 110k copies which led to the album Pain & Paper to sell 101k copies total. Unfortunately, she got played over by Cash Money Records in 2006. But luckily, she's back with the albums, P.S. I Love You and iLoveMe! The Pain & Paper album featured guest stars such as Katt Williams, Fabulous, Danny Roc, Jim Jones, and Da Brat.

So Lil Mo will never fails to amaze her audiences at all! She does have a strong and beautiful voice. Her lyrics are so magnificent. Some of the songs on here are heartbreaking love ballads. Lil Mo evokes emotional effort on this album. A lot of Lil Mo songs often deal with the ups and downs along with the pains of relationships written in lyrics from a woman's perspective.


Just Like That is about leaving a man who isn't faithful to his woman "just like that". Ladies! If your man is treating you badly, Lil Mo encourages you to part ways in your relationship with him right away. Just like that! It's so simple! If you listen very closely, punctually at the very end, Lil Mo's vocals are extremely powerful at the end of this heartbreaking love song.

No Hotel is a song for women that are dating in the relationship game can relate to. Do not allow a man to come into your home and leave when he wants or just whenever he pleases to! It's sickening when women allow men to take advantage of them while in a relationship. No Hotel is about a man who is staying in and out of her house. He eventually gets the boot.

The overall message of the song Heartbeat is to cherish the loved ones that we love while they're still here because we never know when they will be unexpectedly taken away from you and that's just real talk! Anything could happen at any given time! They could be taken away from you simply just like that. Tragedy is about pain and loss. The beeping sound of a heart monitor is well-woven into the beats of this particular song right here.

Dotted I (I'm Not Perfect) is a great song and a great way to end the album. Lil Mo takes us to church on Dotted I (I'm Not Perfect) with the gospel-ish St. Lil Mo Mass Choir singing in the background. The overall message of the song Dotted I (I'm Not Perfect) is 'I'm not perfect. So please don't judge me.' . Lil Mo may not be perfect but she know how to sing her ass off!


Sadly this album did not meet the success of her gold selling albums Based On a True Story and Meet The Girl Next Door. But the production sounds and songwriting is what led this album to be overlooked by the music industry and professional music critics. The reasons being the production was WAY out of control & extremely unbalanced, her songwriting skills weren't very good as her previous efforts, and focused too much on the negative side instead of balancing on a 50%/50% on the positive & negative scale. Lil Mo wasn't able to have any notably famous, well-known studios master any of her tracks to make sure the production would not be extremely unbalanced.

The album Pain & Paper did not get much advertisement funding due to the fact that Lil Mo released the album on her own record label. So her funds have been limited. It's not the same as last time where she had a big business back her up in the promotional marketing department for advertisements for Pain & Paper as the situation was for her 2001 debut album Based On A True Story. Basically Lil Mo did not have the major record label corporation funding to back Lil Mo on her Pain & Paper album. Despite this, the album is good! Lil Mo will never fail to maze you at all!

Sadly I have to rate this album, Pain & Paper, 3/5***.
I rate this album, Pain & Paper, 3/5***.