Slim Thug – Boss Of All Bosses

    When economic times get tight artists with a lot on the line
    commercially sometimes choose to forget about taking any kind of risks.
    Instead they stick to a formula, something proven and accepted. Slim
    Thug

    [click to read] doesn’t pull any 808s and Heartbreak-level
    [click to read] moves on his sophomore
    album, Boss of All Bosses, but he deserves a lot of respect for his
    willingness to do the unexpected while also working within his own
    familiar boundaries. It is also worth noting that the songs that work
    best on the record are the songs that show facets of Slim Thug we have
    never seen before.

    The album opens with the ominous title
    track. Producer Terry “T.A.” Allen combines looped stings, synths that
    sound like a church chorus buried in the mix, and ringing bells to
    announce Thug. The rapper uses his booming voice well but this is all
    stuff we have heard before. Following that is “I’m Back,” a song
    produced by longtime collaborator Mr. Lee and featuring Devin the Dude
    [click to watch]
    on the hook. Both these tracks work really well, if in conventional
    ways. But just when “I’m Back” looks like it’s going to be another
    (very good) Thug track about how he doesn’t need rap, he closes the
    song with a verse that shows an impressive amount of candor with lines
    like “I dropped already platinum but it only sold gold/And niggas
    lookin’ at me like I sold my soul / ‘Cause I’m rappin’ with P. and not
    Mr. Lee/But when ya on your grind sometimes you can’t see
    .” It’s
    amazing to hear a guy, who rarely showed emotion before, be so honest
    about things other rappers might be embarrassed to admit. Fittingly, he
    ends the last verse with an ecstatic announcement that “This is a Lee
    track
    .”

    The next three tracks are three of the best on the
    album and the three least expected. First up is the Flock of Seagulls
    sampling “I Run,” produced by Jim Jonsin
    [click to read]. With an updated Wyclef
    Jean

    [click to read] /Diddy
    approach to sampling hits, few would have ever seen this song coming
    let alone it turning out to be a great Slim Thug single. This song has
    no business working but it does, in a messy, fun way. And even with its
    goofy ’80s sample, Thugga slips in lines about the recession and pleas
    to President Obama for help. After that there is the Mannie
    Fresh
    -helmed track “Show Me Love”, which sounds like vintage Cash Money
    from a decade ago – a summertime potential hit. And that goes double
    for “Smile,” a song that will probably end up being divisive. It opens
    with music box like melody that continues throughout, it’s the aural
    equivalent of Houston’s beloved candy-paint. The track is light and
    playful, a song for the ladies that isn’t slow and full of boring
    lover-man talk.

    Following that unexpected triptych the things
    get a little hit and miss. “Thug”, “My Bitch,” and “She Like That,” all
    produced by Mr. Lee, fall into the love song traps that “Smile” so
    deftly avoids. They are monotonous and patronizing. They are an example
    of Thug working within a proven formula without doing anything to do
    raise it up into something special. “Leaning'”, featuring UGK
    [click to read],
    is a decent song but is covers familiar territory. To some, this song
    may be discomforting, with verses by Pimp C celebrating Promethazine, a cause of death to the Texas pioneer. Two other collaborations
    fare better. “Hard,” is a great track which samples contemporary
    blue-eyed-soul singer Marc Broussard‘s “Hard Knocks.” Scarface
    [click to read]
    spits a verse which further proves that this man cannot be allowed to
    retire, ever. J-Dawg‘s guest verse contrasts well with ‘Face and
    Thugga‘s, his breathless, manic delivery being the absolute opposite of
    the other two. On “Associates” Thug gets to Scarface-levels of paranoia
    and the results are wholly unexpected, a song so bleak and desperate,
    filled with angry confessions of isolation, that it could be the most
    surprising track on an album with its fair share. Thug opens with “All
    my niggas is gone, my down bitch done cut / I got some shit on my dome.
    Now, did they love me or what? / I’m one deep with my chrome like I
    ain’t givin’ a fuck / If I gotta do this alone, fuck it, that’s what’s
    up
    ,” and he completely gets the mistrust and hurt across.

    Ironically
    a few songs after “Associates” the album closes with the longest, most
    guest filled, non-mixtape posse cut in recent memory. “Welcome 2
    Houston” features from the well known (Chamillionaire
    [click to read]
    and Mike Jones) to the legendary (UGK and Lil Keke) to the slept on
    (Z-Ro and Trae) the track features 14 Houston emcees and should be an
    epic. But unfortunately, while it is admirable to try and represent
    your whole city on one track, the song just doesn’t work. Any flow the
    song could have hoped to have is ruined by an overlong chorus which is
    repeated every two verses. It makes a long song longer, and much less
    interesting.

    That’s the lone problem with Boss of All Bosses,
    there are some great tracks where Thug explores new themes and sounds
    but they are broken up by tracks that aren’t just formulaic but also
    tired and occasionally boring. This is a shame because it was shaping
    up to be a Houston Rap classic through its first handful of tracks. What it turns out to be is a good record where a mainstream
    artist challenges himself and comes up with enough good songs (and some
    great songs) to make it worth your money. And that is
    something that can’t be said for more than 90% of what is released in
    any given year.

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