Tuesday, August 14, 2012

2 Chainz - Based on a T.R.U. Story







Unless you been under a rock for the last few months, I’m sure you’ve heard of and heard some 2 Chainz. Just the mention of the name alone makes you instantly think of his adlib say it with me “2 Chainz !!!!” Numerous mixtape appearances,  features,  and numerous feature mixtapes most notably , Codeine Cowboy and T.R.U. Realigion . The man has been everywhere, you definitely have to respect his hustle and his grind. He’s extremely polarizing people either love him or hate him, not since Soldier Boy and Waka Flocka has any rappers verses been so scrutinized over the internet, but after a huge Cosign from Kanye, and rumors of signing with G.O.O.D Music, people suddenly wanted to see could he deliver on the promise and live up to the street hype on Based On a T.R.U. Story.
 
Based on a T.R.U. Story promises to be a polarizing , scrutinized album loved by his fans and mixed reviews by everyone else.  Lyrically the album is very simple with extremely elementary, rhyme schemes with a simple flow in the same vain as artist like Future, Tony Yayo or Flavor Flav. There are some very significant problems with the lyrical components of the album, its very one dimensional with lots of repetitive subject matter. Subject range is very limited, usually covering all of the stereotypical trap rapper subjects.  On this offering , 2 Chainz lacks versatility ,  it’s the same subjects constantly over different beats,  the same flow , no challenge, experiments, no new ground broken. He doesn’t go out side of his self and give us anything he hasn’t already done, he doesn’t even step it up and do it better.  A lot of the criticisms about 2 Chainz music are going to continue to hold true as the album lacks creativity or originality, because its stereotypically southern and trap music,  and a lot of the verses don’t make sense, they tend to lack organization, be random, unfocused,  and unorganized bars.  The biggest drawback is that most of the production is just average, sonically most of the songs are cool if you in a seedy  smoky strip club, a hood house party or club, definitely not for every club or even concert music,   basically any environment where lyrics, and the technical aspects of  hip hop and song making just don’t matter. The Best verses and song saving verses are by the features, the album chock full of features, everybody hot on the scene,  it almost doesn’t seem he can hold it down by himself, and ends up using features as a crutch, relying on other artist cosigns to boost his cred. Many times he seems out of place on the tracks with other artist when he can’t deliver.  However standout tracks on the album to check for are “Yuck!” ft./  Lil Wayne, which has one of the better verses and deliveries from Chainz,  “ No Lie” ft./ Drake, probably the best song on the album, Birthday song ft./ Kanye West and Ghetto Dream ft./ Scarface & John Legend.

While 2Chainz is hot in the streets, on his grind and full of hustle ,  he needs to work on his craft, use the hustle and focus it into perfecting his craft. Step his lyrics and song making skills way up , see the bigger picture because at this rate its not even music you would want to see performed, neither is it performance music. The entertainment value is marginal , and replay value low. It doesn’t seem as if 2 Chainz is ready to be a primary artist, but is better as a featured artist.

While you can’t hate on him for doing something legal, and attempting to be creative, it’s just not of high quality at the moment. I rate Based on a T.R.U. Story 2 stars out of 6 , it could  needs work, could be better a and it doesn’t live up to expectations.

 Slin_k
@slin_k_polymath on twitter



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