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.