Oh, what a conundrum 2 Chainz has found himself in with Hip Hop’s 2017 landscape.
On one Gucci loafer, he’s constantly elevated both his celebrity status and hitmaking ability since he ditched his Walmart-shelf-unfriendly moniker Tity Boi back in 2011. On the other foot, his once revered brand of slick-tongued trap music has become even more watered down thanks to the rise of SoundCloud records being ushered into prominence without quality control safeguards (see the past couple years of XXL Freshman freestyles for further reference).
So when the nearly 40-year-old College Park rap constituent quips “Sippin’ quavo, ridin’ offsets, guess I’m ’bout to take off” on the swanky “OG Kush Diet,” a stellar filler cut on Pretty Girls Like Trap Music — his strongest body of work to date — the audience looking to praise lyrical cleverness is scarcer than ever. But as he edges toward elder statesman status, 2 Chainz knows what he likes.
Over the course of an hour and some change, Trap-A-Velli run quick sees and caters to the demographic most likely to hit the button on a stream, tweet or text message to spread his gospel: the women. And he doesn’t go at it for dolo. Chainz actually has a lot of help from the current who’s who in the biz. Drake (via the time-tested “Big Amount”), Nicki Minaj and Migos all chip in surefire assists throughout the project.
Likewise, all Pretty Girls Like Trap Music producers step into the party with respectable résumés, whether it’s the certified OG status of Mike Dean, who brings a scenic kaleidoscope of subtle piano keys and high hats to make “Good Drank” intoxicating, or current best-kept-secrets like Murda Beatz and Cubeatz’ tag-teaming the hypnotic “4 AM.”
The buttery smooth “It’s a Vibe” feels like a Ty Dolla $ign track that Tity decided to adopt as his own, and operates like an aphrodisiac mainlined to the female nervous system (ultimately validated by Jhené Aiko’s consent to “bust it wide”).
Pharrell Williams performs double duty with the production and chorus on the crossover ready “Bailan,” with its airy flutes and hardened cymbal crashes that make the flawless soundtrack for a ghetto tango.
While 2 Chainz can make a living in the paint with carefree rapping about everything featured in the pages of GQ, the depths of his raps still don’t eclipse what’s become the norm in Hip Hop. It’s long been understood that 2 Chainz serves as a mayor for materialism as opposed to a tenured Walter Cronkite of rap, and that’s just the way it is. But when he’s being grouped in with peers of a lesser ilk — regardless of the extra attention to detail he puts into his lyrics — it may be time to buckle down to make the lines of distinction more obvious.
Despite the lack of range, Pretty Girls Like Trap Music goes down as 2 Chainz’ strongest LP to date and will become a reference point for anyone curious about how the towering rap star can service their turn-up needs. While he may still be working on giving the world a universal classic, making a solid project that gets all the women of interest in the same state of mind is nothing to scoff at.
If I had to rate this album from 1-5, I would … first need to listen to it, and it’s 2 Chainz so there’s just no way in hell I’m going to waste my time doing that. 4.1? yeah right!
My opinion this album is easy a 4/5, it has a lot of lirical ability plus more than enough bangers to put the album on repeat , my favorite song “poor fool” give me the chills everytime, this shows 2 chainz ability to make songs with a concept that can easily be played in the clubs at the same time, while all other southern artists are rapping about lean and bitches this 2 chainz album is pretty impressive and believe it or not motivational, this is my 2 cents, hope everyone go and take a listen, 2 chainzzzzz
Where do you see lyrical ability at? On a 2Chainz album? You must be deaf or smoking rocks.
4/5 rating , go check it out
So called lyrical rappers aka broke new york rappers are why NY Hiphop died . Who trying to copy NY and die out in the culture like NY music ? #HopefullyNobody
So why is he doing a album with statik u retard?
Decent album some beats are good. Lyrically average. Nothing special it’s the same old shit over and over again. It’s his best project in while tho.
People still hate on artist from the south. Especially those with east coast bias. I listen to rap from all regions. Some are better than others.
Decent album, better than DJ khaled grateful, but not better than that new Bone thugs and Big Boi
This is platnum
Pretty girls light trap music is a classic shitfire???2chains did his thing like he always do?#doorsopen
Dear hiphopdx. Why don’t you review a real hiphop album. Not some trash that’s trying to poison us with drugs, repetitive dumb lyrics and beats. Kool g rap new album is out.Check out the real mc’s on that. That’s hip hop give us a review, I’m fed up with this website trying to push these wack rappers to us. Nuff good hiphop goes under the radar on this site. I bet this gets deleted.
At least he actually uses words and doesn’t mumble, which is a rarity these days.
I don’t understand how 2 Chainz has become famous? He’s ok.. he’s not a strong MC by any means and his music is pretty mediocre. Like how did this guy get any bigger than being Titty Boi on DTP back in the day?
He’s never been wack, i gotta say, he’s average. And it’s an average album, a 6/10.
PGLTM has something for everyone in a well-crafted LP from the “King of Features” himself
Takeoff is much better than Offset. No doubt.
Pretty good. Nothing too grandiose. But that works well enough.
I think ugly girls listen to trap music like broke ass hoodrats, tweek hoes burnt out strippers. Beautiful intelligent women think this dude is a greasy fuckin 1/2 ass thug. Love the pink album cover too thats soo hood!
Whooooa! This album is ?. U clowns ? need to stop hating. Chainz did da damn thang on this album. 5/5! Shawty
Not a fan of 2 Chainz at all but this is a cool album.
WACK! MUSIC FOR HOMOS!
i don’t go out of my way to listen to 2chainz but this is pretty good. 2chainz has clever rhyme schemes, and it sounds like the producers actually took their time.
this album was trash. easily his worst effort. barley had 5 good songs on it. lets hope next time he does better
5 songs???! thats better than all albums being released these days. you low key just gave this a 5 star rating.
The only good song on this project is ”Poor Fool”. And tbh that song slaps so much. The rest of the project is complete garbage. Overall, it’s 2 chainz, we know what we can expect from him.