RAP
"Paper Trail"
T.I. Grand Hustle/Atlantic. 16 tracks.
Grade: B+
Facing a year and a day of prison time, one might think that Atlanta's T.I. would do anything but begin his new album with a track titled "56 Bars."
But that's the really good thing about "Paper Trail" — it is everything and nothing you would expect from the hip-hop superstar.
And by everything, yes, that means T.I. is the same charismatically slick, super-boastful, profanity-spewing T.I. who's sold millions of his previous five CDs. (Never mind that outside of recording studios, he's giving motivational speeches in schools and church services to fulfill some 1,000-plus hours of community service, part of a guilty plea for felony weapons charges. He's due to be sentenced in March 2009.)
The introduction, in fact — "56 Bars" — is basically one long brag with the audacity to begin: "This [is] what the folk been waiting on." But T.I. does his assertion no favors with the track that follows. "I'm Illy" stumbles with a hook too similar to "Get Silly" by the less talented V.I.C.
T.I. is better than that, and rhymes better from that point on.
The next single, "Ready For Whatever," answers the question every fan had last year when the Grammy winner (and convicted felon) — on his way to the BET Hip Hop Awards where he was the leading nominee — decided to detour to a Midtown Walgreens to buy machine guns and silencers.
That question, of course, is why?!
"If your life was in jeopardy everyday is you telling me you wouldn't need weaponry, just because of your felonies?" T.I. asks in "Ready." "Consider this at least — I've got everybody sweating me. On the streets is people who won't rest unless I rest in peace. Killed my folk a year ago still in my sleep they threaten me ... I'm dealing with depression from my partner dying next to me. Think cause no one's arrested they coming for me eventually. See this was all the things that I was going through mentally."
In the end, "I'm wrong and I know it" T.I. adds.
If "Ready" is riveting for its openness, "Live Your Life" (featuring Rihanna) is on mark for its pop anthem potential, while "Swagga Like Us" (featuring Jay-Z, Kanye West and Lil Wayne) has rap star power, and "Porn Star" is, well, X-rated smolder.
But again, that's T.I. as you would expect.
So what's the unexpected? That he actually sings an entire song on his recent — and first — No. 1 pop single in the country, "Whatever You Like." Also surprising is that he recruits A-list artists (Ludacris, Usher, John Legend, Justin Timberlake), with whom he only comes up with "B" or "B-" songs.
And in curious, 2Pac-like fashion, he uses the subject of facing — and enduring — prison time to craft one of his best songs here, "You Ain't Missin' Nothing."
