Billboard Top Ten for my Birthday Week: Number 5

Shawty Lo
Units in the City


That awkward look on his face and tweaking of his jaw is your first hint...

I spent a few minutes wondering where I remember the name Shawty Lo from, so I looked him up on wikipedia, because I’m a busy, busy man. He was in D4L. They released “Laffy Taffy”. Interestingly enough, he was locked up during that, so he has made exactly… fuckall in his career.

This is one of those albums that you know is going to be bad, you’re here to read how bad.

Straight off the starting line I was bored by this. The beat for “100,000” is set up for a run of about a minute, not 3:41. I mean, I appreciate that he went against the shitty-rap-intro grain, but instead of giving me something in that, he gave me a really long shitty rap intro. As this is my first time listening to this album, I’m worried by the title. Most rappers talk about millions… am I to believe that he’s not even good enough to pretend millions of dollars?

Oh… this should be a fun journey.

The club banger, (I use that term lightly for this song), “Dey Know” is the second track on the album. Listening to it outside of the context of not-really-listening-to-it, the production sounds like second-rate production from a third-rate producer’s bastard child.

The remainder of the album is full of strange lines like “I’m yawning ‘cause I’m horny” and “Nigga say he from the west side/Goddamn, it must be two sides” (strangely enough, this is on a song talking about how he’s done everything and been everywhere). The fact that they were said in Shawty Lo’s constantly strained voice, (like a great-grandfather without glasses reading fine print out loud as a bedtime story), made annoyances out of lines that would have just been hilarious.

You’ve seen movies where they hammer bamboo chutes under a prisoner’s fingernails as torture, right? They don’t just, KA-BLAM, hammer it all the way in, do they? They tap it slowly, millimeter by millimeter, so it hurts more. That’s what it feels like when Shawty Lo stretches out his words at the end of each and EVERY FUCKING LINE ON THIS ALBUM! I don’t know if he’s learned how to emphasize yet.

Shawty Lo is probably, quite literally, retarded. I don’t mean retarded, stupid. I mean literally, short-bus, fucking retarded. I’m glad you asked why I say that. With songs like “Dunn Dunn” which has a chorus that repeats, in part: “Dunn, dunn, duh, duh, dunn, done it all,” you have to at least consider the possibility.

As far as the beats went, I found my mind wandering between two questions. The first question was “How many Ataris did they have to use to get that beat?” the second was “They got Terri Schiavo on production?!” (the only logical explanation I could find for the coma-inducing, changeless, mundane, pedestrian, boring, mind-numbing beats).

I honestly can't be totally negative about the album. Other than the music, it was pretty good.

Best Tracks: “100,000,” “Live My Life,” “Got Em 4 The Lo”

Pros:
- At least he kind of knows what a rhyme is... maybe. A for effort.
- The mixing is terrible. This wouldn’t usually be a good thing, but the beat usually is mixed well over Shawty Lo’s vocals.
- I usually have three things under “pro”… here’s one.

Cons:
- Stole Soulja Boy’s flow on “Let’s Get It”
- I think it might be worse than souljaboytellem.com.
- The album exists.

Overall Score: 5%

Billboard Top Ten for my Birthday Week: Number 4

Trina's Still Da Baddest


First of all, I’ve gotta say that I may rate this album low because she’s dated Lil’ Wayne. It’s a judgment call about personal integrity that I may just have to make. That being said…

The beats are a step or two above Beats By The Pound’s (from No Limit), but that doesn’t necessarily make them good. All of them are boring… all of them are boring. Let me say that one more time: B-O-R-I-N-G.

The singing rap & B shit is something I’ve never felt, and Trina has it in spades. So if you’re into corny sounding lines sung by someone who is marginal at best, this album is for YOU! :-D

She told Billboard.com that she “put 150% into this album” and that “I have a thousand different emotions and feelings [which… let me go to the judges… yes… “emotions” and “feelings” are what we call “synonyms”] and I show it all in this project” noting that “people can see Trina really grew up”.

Just like Trina said, the range of subject matter is incredible. The album goes from exploring how big her ass is to Trina’s drunken stupors to anger at Lil’ Wayne! The album also shows serious personal evolution and reflection and refinement, growing up from songs like “Da Baddest Bitch,” “Da Club,” and “Sexy Gurl” to “Still Da Baddest,” “I Got A Bottle,” and “Hot Commodity”.

You’d think with subject matter like this, she’d have some great beats, or at least passable, or at least ones that you could say “in the club, I’d like this”… but, let me reiterate, the beats are BORING. The best one, by far, is “I Got A Bottle” and that’s probably only because Missy Elliot is on the track and she would have bitch slapped anyone giving her a bad beat, then suffocated them in that puffy suit she wore in “The Rain”.

Honestly, I didn’t have to get too far into the album to realize why it was released on April 1st.

I think the constant irony is my favorite part of bad albums. In “Single Again” she seems quite angry that Wayne only “fell in love with my ass/King Magazine, you fell in love with my ad” but talks about her ass in at least half of her songs, the other half end up about her pussy, and sprinkled here and there are references to things like fucking “a nigga in the dump”.

Outside of the irony, she has some of the funniest lines off of any album ever. “Look Back at Me” has some of the funniest. A few lines that had me rewind were “Licky, licky, licky, licky, licky for an hour/I’ma make it rain for you, here’s a golden shower/Smell it like a flower, my pussy is a rose/Come a little closer, I wanna fuck your nose”. My best guess is that she’s trying to come off as a freak, like she was trying to do when she told the listener to smack her in the face with their cock earlier in the song, but in this particular portion of the song, she goes from hilariously gross to hilarious. I’m sure anyone that’s eaten pussy has, whether on purpose or accidentally, has had the girl fuck their nose, but it’s just something you don’t verbally say, particularly to me, who just pictures a guy with a bad head cold sneezing into a cunt.

On “Clear It Out” she just reminds me of when rappers who haven’t done shit rap about their money. She makes audacious claims like “if they talking, I’m the topic of the conversation” and “1,000 dollar shoes, European jewels, million dollar crib with a swimming pool”. Most of the song can be followed by “because of [insert Lil’ Wayne, Rick Ross, or Trick Daddy here]”. She attached herself to more famous names for a while and developed the theory that SHE is the famous one. Hmmm… really, Trina? Really?

One more track specific thing: “Phone Sexx” has two X’s because it’s not as graphic as “Look Back at Me,” and is quite dull in comparison (more rap & B nonsense). Frankly, it makes me really wish for “Ayo Technology”… or better yet “Digital Get Down” by N*Sync. Oh, and the line “sexin’ your body” has always made me laugh, and it shows up here in the hook.

Maybe she should beat up a her neighbor with a Blackberry and I’d give her a 73%.

Best Tracks: “Still Da Baddest,” “I Got A Bottle,” “Hot Commodity”

Pros:
- It ends.
- Any songs about disliking Lil’ Wayne, (for any reason), gets a “pro” from me.
- If you have two songs about disliking Lil’ Wayne, you get two “pro” marks. Get it?

Cons:
- Killer Mike drops the weakest verse I’ve seen from him… ever.
- Pitbull pulls a Killer Mike.
- I think I forgot to mention the beats are FUCKING BORING!

Overall Score: 45%

Billboard Top Ten for my Birthday Week: Number 3

The Roots' Rising Down


This is definitely a darker Roots album. It’s almost irrelevant to even talk about the beats in a Roots album, since you already know they’re different from every other beat out there by virtue that a lot of it is directed by ?uestlove and friends and not an 808, (I need to mention the beat to “I Can’t Help It” and say it’s basically the shit). The album, as always, has a unique fusion sound to it with Black Thought and friends coming intelligently. There’s not really much to say about this album but it deserves to be on the Billboard, and it got there.

Short-ass review. Grab the album.

Best Tracks: “Rising Down,” “Criminal,” “I Will Not Apologize,” “I Can’t Help It,” “Singing Man,” “Rising Up”

Pros:
- Everybody featured on the album was amazing. And, let me just say that I’m sick of Saigon on the mixtape circuit. I can’t wait for him to drop an album.
- The beats are incredible. I didn’t stop nodding my head, even during verses I wasn’t really feeling.
- It’s basically an hour of good beats, even if you think all the lyricists suck. There are a few gaps here and there, but those fall where there aren’t beats (like “@ 15”).


Cons:
- I have a personal qualm with not being the first emcee on your own album, but since that emcee was Mos Def, it’s less of a problem.
- Some of the flows or off, even when the lyrics are spot on.
- The song “Unwritten” was pretty weak.

Overall Score: 90%