TI – Fuck Da City Up

Will TI be home for good now after all those round trips to jail? With ‘Fuck Tha City Up’ it’s like he wants to start from scratch again, show that he’s one of the hardest still. And we haven’t heard TI on so many hard beats since… ‘King’?  (My favorite T.I.’s album anyway). As he said it himself, he has climbed “up the echelons” of fame with more and more commercial albums like ‘T.I. vs. T.I.P.’ and ‘Paper Trail’ and never came down, until the jail chapter.

‘Fuck Da City up’ really is a long mixtape and suffers from a lack of variety. There’s never a day where I feel like ingesting it all. Here you have to judge the book by its cover; the fact that he has rappers like Two Chainz and Meek Mill as guests tells us exactly where TI is looking at the moment. But I guess it’s because of him that rappers like them exist today so in a way it’s like full circle. The only difference is that they’re ‘fresh’ and he’s not.

I do get the feeling that we’ve already seen everything TI can do as a rapper and there’s never gonna be any surprise anymore. Some rappers you want to know what they gonna do next; but I never have this expectation with TI. He’s always done and said pretty much the same thing since day one. And what you sometimes do get here from the T.I.’s verses in the midst of all the loud beats doesn’t sound very exciting.

Enrolling Pimp C (RIP), Young Jeezy, & Young Dro doesn’t help either with the feeling of déjà vu. The track ‘Pissing on your ego’ drags the mixtape even more at the end; BOB… I’m sorry but I still don’t know how to enjoy him as a rapper. Also I think T.I. could have done a better job on the Mannie Fresh produced ‘The One’ while the Dr Dre track seems like another missed opportunity.

But TI is nice when he shows some teeth on the vigorous ‘Loud Mouth’ with 2 Chainz or the massive ‘Harry Potter’ with his catchy chorus and does justice with a wonderful flow to the Just Blaze produced ‘Oh Yeah’ feat Trey Songz. But it’s the invigorating ‘I’ll show you’ with Pusha T that clearly takes the spot on the mixtape.

It would be great to see T.I. explore other sonic territories. Producers like Big KRIT or 9^th Wonder would be interesting as they’d allow him to show a little bit more sensitivity and lay different flows. I’ve never said T.I. was done. I am just wondering how he could be amazing again.

Chip Tha Ripper – Tell Ya Friends

One thing with Chip, you’ve got the feeling he doesn’t want to be put in a box. For the most part ‘Tell Ya Friends’ takes us on a colorful soundscape trip with a cohort of interesting featurings.

Being from Cleveland, why wouldn’t he pay homage to Bone Thugs & Harmony with his rapid 9mm flow on the stubborn and rusty ‘We Ain’t Playin’ featuring CyHi the Prince? We’re almost back to East 1999 here. Even the Lex Luger produced ‘Out here’ has that Cleveland gloom to it. No wonder Chip and Krayzie Bone team up for one track, the strong ‘Stay Sleep’.

On the other end of the spectrum Chip has also been a collaborator of Kid Cudi (they have a common project supposedly coming).  You can hear some influence on the electro deserted ‘Cactus’, the gentle neo-soul ‘Hold me Down’ with Eric Grant and the minimalist gem ‘Gloryout’ produced by Hi-Tek. Too bad ‘Ride 4 You’ with both of them comes out a little bit uncreative.

There are an awful lot of songs about women and money on this mixtape; I’ll keep ‘Light Skinned Hoes’ for the Three-Six Mafia-esque hook. I would have liked to save ‘Pocket Full’, I do like the production and the tempo here, but I guess there’s a limit to my acceptance of bad lyrics.

Fortunately the mixtape still holds a few surprises with the melancholic ‘25 Wives’ featuring Wale, the explosive and unexpected ‘Boomshakalaka’ with Bun B hard as ever, and the anxiogenic dance track ‘Here we Are’.

I like when a rapper has more than one string to his bow. Being eclectic is rather a rare trait in today’s hip hop. What Chip Tha Ripper did here is to hold my interest strongly enough to make me want to know what his next project’s gonna be. Just cut off some of the head and the tail of ‘Tell Ya Friends’ and you’ll have a nice collection of songs.