Pain Is Love

1	Pain Is Love (Skit) 1:20
2	Dial M for Murder 3:32
3	Livin' It Up 4:17
4	The Inc. / Ashanti 3:56
5	Always on Time / Ashanti 4:05
6	Down A** B**ch / Chuck 5:31
7	Never Again 4:18
8	Worldwide Gangsta / Black Child 3:20
9	Leo (Skit) 2:18
10	I'm Real / Jennifer Lopez Murder Remix 4:12
11	Smokin and Ridin / O-1 4:51
12	X 5:02
13	Big Remo (Skit) 0:19
14	Lost Little Girl 5:00
15	So Much Pain / 2Pac 5:03
16	Pain Is Love 5:04

Barnes & Noble

The expression "Big boys don't cry" doesn't apply to rapper Ja Rule. In fact, with pathos-driven singles such as "I Cry" and "It's Murda," the Def Jam golden child has cashed in on wearing his heart on his muscle-bound sleeve. And with his third disc, Pain Is Love, the Hollis, Queens, native continues to ride the emotional roller coaster that's brought him to hip-hop stardom. With the melodic beats of Pain, Rule sustains the momentum created by his top-selling sophomore effort, Rule 3:36. Showing his versatility, the gravel-voiced rapper is as comfortable rapping over a Stevie Wonder sample (the bouncy first single, "Livin' It Up") and singing with the angelic Jennifer Lopez (the smoothed-out remix of "I'm Real") as he is spitting gritty rhymes with up-and-comers Jodie Mack and O-1 on the G-funked-out "Smokin' and Ridin'." He also joins forces with Missy Elliott on the old-school soul-inspired "X" (which also appears on Elliott's Miss E...So Addictive), with the late 2Pac on the moving "So Much Pain," and over '80s arcade game effects with his Murderers' cohorts Cadillac Tah, Black Child, Boo, and Gotti on "Worldwide Gangsta." On "I'm Real," Rule barks that his mission is "to bring pain to pretty woman and fake thugs who want the same." And throughout Pain Is Love, hip-hop has rarely hurt so good. Abby Addis

All Music Guide

The few rap-R&B hybrids on Rule 3:36 (2000) paid off large dividends by the time of Ja Rule's next album, Pain Is Love. A day didn't pass between the release of the two albums when Ja Rule's voice couldn't be heard on urban radio, and at the time of Pain Is Love's release in October 2001, he had not one but two singles getting nonstop airplay: "Livin' It Up" and "I'm Real," the latter a Jennifer Lopez song featuring him as a guest rapper. It should be no surprise then to discover that Pain Is Love follows the same formula that had made Rule 3:36 such a commercial success: craft some radio-friendly crossover singles, often featuring pretty young female R&B singers as romantic counterpoints, and then fill out the album with hardcore rap, often featuring Murder Inc.'s roster of secondary rappers, to sustain Ja Rule's thug reputation. Actually, this formula is fine-tuned on Pain Is Love to account for some exceptions -- for instance, the lead single, "Livin' It Up," interpolates Stevie Wonder's "Do I Do" for its crossover-R&B aspect, while the title track recycles an old, generally unheard 2Pac verse to great effect -- and a significantly more balanced album is the result. Plus, there's enough strong material here to encourage full-album listening, as the crossover singles no longer stand out apart from the hardcore rap filler to the degree that they did on Rule 3:36. Jason Birchmeier