''Success Is Certain'' is the fifth studio album by rapper Royce da 5'9" released on August 9, 2011. The first single is "Writer's Block" featuring

Eminem Marshall Bruce Mathers III (born October 17, 1972), known professionally as Eminem (; often stylized as EMINƎM), is an American rapper and record producer. He is credited with popularizing hip hop in middle America and is critically acclai ...

, which was released in March 2011. Production for the album came from

DJ Premier Christopher Edward Martin (born March 21, 1966), known professionally as DJ Premier (also known as Preemo), is an American record producer and DJ. He is considered one of the greatest hip hop producers of all time. He was half of the hip hop du ...

, Mr. Porter,

Nottz Dominick J. Lamb, (born February 21, 1977) better known by his stage name Nottz (or Nottz Raw), is an American hip hop record producer and rapper from Norfolk, Virginia. Nottz has produced for some of the biggest names in hip hop, including Bu ...

, Streetrunner, The Futuristiks and

The Alchemist An alchemist is a person who practices alchemy. Alchemist or Alchemyst may also refer to: Books and stories * ''The Alchemist'' (novel), the translated title of a 1988 allegorical novel by Paulo Coelho * ''The Alchemist'' (play), a play by Be ...

among others. Guest appearances include Eminem,

Joe Budden Joseph Anthony Budden II (born August 31, 1980) is an American media personality and former rapper. He first gained recognition as a rapper with his 2003 top 40 single " Pump It Up" and as a member of the hip hop supergroup Slaughterhouse. In ...

, Kid Vishis and

Travis Barker Travis Landon Barker (born November 14, 1975) is an American musician who serves as the drummer for the rock band Blink-182. He has also performed as a frequent collaborator with hip hop artists, is a member of the rap rock group Tran ...

Singles and promotion

The album artwork, track listing, and related promo art (such as a full-website "takeover" on RapRadar) was created by Brett Lindzen. The official artwork was revealed on July 4, 2011. The artwork depicts a black

Rolls-Royce Rolls-Royce (always hyphenated) may refer to: * Rolls-Royce Limited, a British manufacturer of cars and later aero engines, founded in 1906, now defunct Automobiles * Rolls-Royce Motor Cars, the current car manufacturing company incorporated in ...

car parallel parked in front of the Detroit Savings Bank. The photo is in black and white. Instead of Royce da 5'9"'s full stage name, the cover shows only "R5'9"" with "Royce" written in smaller font below. The track list was revealed the same day with the availability for pre-order. "

Writer's Block Writer's block is a condition, primarily associated with writing, in which an author is either unable to produce new work or experiences a creative slowdown. Mike Rose found that this creative stall is not a result of commitment problems or th ...

" was announced to be the first single from ''Success Is Certain''. It was released March 29, 2011, on

iTunes iTunes () is a software program that acts as a media player, media library, mobile device management utility, and the client app for the iTunes Store. Developed by Apple Inc., it is used to purchase, play, download, and organize digital mul ...

. The song features

Detroit Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at th ...

rapper

, but only on the hook. It is produced by Streetrunner and Raymond (SAROM) Diaz. Royce da 5'9" originally reached out to Eminem for this song. Later, they started recording for

Bad Meets Evil Bad Meets Evil is an American hip hop duo composed of Detroit-based rappers Royce da 5'9" (Bad) and Eminem (Evil). Bad Meets Evil was formed in 1998, thanks to the duo's mutual friend, Proof. The group's name comes from the song "Bad Meets Evi ...

's EP, '' Hell: The Sequel''. It was confirmed that this would still be used on Royce's ''Success Is Certain''. " Second Place" was released on June 14, 2011, as the second single from the album. It was produced by

. There were rumors that Royce had originally planned for this song to feature

Raekwon Corey Woods (born January 12, 1970), better known by his stage name Raekwon The Chef, or simply Raekwon (), is an American rapper. He rose to prominence as a founding member of the hip-hop group Wu-Tang Clan, which achieved mainstream success ...

and

Method Man Clifford Smith, Jr. (born March 2, 1971), better known by his stage name Method Man, is an American rapper, songwriter, record producer, and actor. He is known as a member of the East Coast hip hop collective Wu-Tang Clan. He is also half of ...

, but did not because of the leak. Later this was confirmed false. "Legendary" was released on July 19, 2011, on iTunes as the third single from the album. All three singles from the album can be streamed at Royce's website.

Commercial performance

The album debuted at number 25 on the ''Billboard'' 200 with 16,000 copies sold in its first week released. In its second week, the album sold 4,700 copies to bring in a total of 20,700 copies to date. As of March 20, 2012, the album has sold 43,500 copies in the United States.

Reception

''Success Is Certain'' has received general acclaim from

music critics Music journalism (or music criticism) is media criticism and reporting about music topics, including popular music, classical music, and traditional music. Journalists began writing about music in the eighteenth century, providing commentary on w ...

.Success Is Certain Reviews, Ratings, Credits, and More

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

Retrieved on August 27, 2011 At

, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an

average In ordinary language, an average is a single number taken as representative of a list of numbers, usually the sum of the numbers divided by how many numbers are in the list (the arithmetic mean). For example, the average of the numbers 2, 3, 4, 7, ...

score of 82, based on 5 reviews, which indicates "universal acclaim". David Jeffries of ''

Allmusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...

'' wrote, "Musically, the results are a brighter, tighter, yet more elaborate version of the man's best work, with tracks like "Security" and "Merry Go Round" sounding both flashy and meaty at once." Evan Rytlewski of

The A.V. Club ''The A.V. Club'' is an American online newspaper and entertainment website featuring reviews, interviews, and other articles that examine films, music, television, books, games, and other elements of pop-culture media. ''The A.V. Club'' was cre ...

gave the album a "B" rating, writing "disorganized as it is, this is the environment he works best in, and ''Success'' smartly just lets him do his thing". Meka Udoh of '' XXL'' gave the album an "XL" review, writing "maybe influenced by Marshall himself, Royce has learned to channel his loquacious voracity into a controlled rage, and the end result is perhaps his most complete body of work".

Track listing

;Note *The track 3 "Merry Go Round" is replaced by "I'm Fresh" featuring Mr. Porter on the

album version.

Chart history

References

External links

''Success Is Certain''
at

{{Authority control 2011 albums Albums produced by the Alchemist (musician) Albums produced by DJ Premier Albums produced by Mr. Porter Albums produced by Eminem Albums produced by Nottz Royce da 5'9" albums