A Best Third Release Nominee in the 2005 Awards
Professional Rapper begins with the fan favorite “Move”. It’s a good track with mostly intro-type lyrics, yet like pretty much all of John’s stuff it contains nuggets of insight. 
“Have No Opinion?” calls out hypocrites, false revolutionists, and people who are automatically argumentative, while explaining that he doesn’t want to dispute his personal opinions and beliefs with those people.
“I Haven’t Been Myself” (featuring Adrienne Camp) is musically dark/downbeat. Lyrically, he speaks words of regret for some things that have happened in his life, wanting to go back to how it was before.
“Life Is Short” is a cool, upbeat, catchy tune, lightly encouraging you to appreciate the time you have and to try and make it count.
“Treats” is another fan favorite. It begins with a hilarious clip of John supposedly talking randomly between songs onstage, and a frustrated girl in the ‘crowd’ loudly protests and even taunts him; she wants a real show, not just “that stupid arm thing”. From there on, the song is cute, fun, and very catchy. It also contains the ‘crowd’ occasionally shouting in unison (“Give us what we came here for! Encore, we want more…”, etc.). [And since this CD came out, we actually once heard a real crowd chant that, instead of the standard “one more song”, to get a John Reuben encore!]
“Freedom To Feel” (again featuring Adrienne Camp) is another dark track that gets fairly intense at the end. Lyrically, John observes (among other things) that if no one really shows their true self, how can anyone know what’s real?
“Time To Leave” first describes what he was told by society about what he should do and what relationships are like (which wasn’t right or true), and then his insightful observations about how it really is. He also reminds you: Never forget to truly live life. Lyrically, this is one of John’s best tracks.
“Re-Record” is an upbeat song, with John supposedly recording a message to everyone. He keeps on ‘re-recording’ it, but the whole thing (as usual) is good, and also (as usual) insightful.
“Jammin’ John And Mixin’ Manny” is a cute, short track that ‘describes’ himself and his DJ.
“All In All” (featuring Tom Skipper from House Of Heroes) is a more musically laid-back track.
“5 Years To Write” is a tribute from John to his wife. It goes through all of his conflicting thoughts, emotions, and the changes he went through as their relationship grew; yet, again, it’s insightful for the rest of us as well.
Finally, “Higher” (featuring Alan Auguste’) lyrically begins in the first verse as a simple closer track; but in the second verse John squeezes in some more insights.
Professional Rapper is simply another great album from John Reuben.
Our rating for Professional Rapper: 5 Stars. 